LAHORE: Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) chief retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan lamented the failure of the national hockey team to qualify for next year’s Olympics, adding that the country has little chance of participating in the Games barring a few wildcard entries.

“It’s a sad day for us as no one from Pakistan will be able to qualify for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro,” he said.

“It’s nothing that wasn’t expected,” Arif added on the hockey team after it lost to Ireland in the fifth to eighth place classification match at the Hockey World League Semi-finals in Belgium on Friday. “I wonder why the government is now taking steps to probe the failure.

“Pakistan hockey had been suffering from one debacle after other. First they finished 12th in the 2010 World Cup before missing out on the next edition and now the Olympics. The situation was foreseeable but nothing was done when effective measures could’ve avoided this catastrophe.”

He said that unless the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) doesn’t stop involving politics in sport, the country’s sport will suffer and slammed the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) officials who have been in their posts for the last eight years.

Arif said that another sporting disaster was in the offing with Pakistan not in a position to field a strong contingent at the South Asian Games to be held in India in December.

“Pakistan had been a force to reckon in the regional event but this time we won’t be in a position to fight for the top three positions,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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