LAHORE: The late hiring of Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans and the changes in the preliminary list of players and officials has meant that the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is facing a race against time to get the team registered for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, Dawn can reveal.

The Games begin in the Australian city of Gold Coast from April 4 and on Wednesday the organisers gave the PHF a grace period of 24 hours to send the full data of the squad.

According to reliable sources, the PHF has included Oltmans’ name in the list despite having not yet announced his appointment officially.

“It is our suggestion that you add the hockey athletes already in the system to your team in SEQ and then add the additional athletes once the information is provided by you and they are added to the system. Please return all data [of the players and officials] in the next 24 hours,” a letter sent on Wednesday by the organisation committee of the Games to the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) stated.

The POA then sent a letter to the PHF saying: “You are also aware of the fact that the accreditation/visa process closed in November 2017. Under the circumstances PHF may please explain the circumstances and reasons for the said oversight and deviation and give their justification for the drastic changes of including unaccredited athletes and officials.”

The last date for submission of the squad was initially November 24.

In the first list the PHF sent the names of 23 probables for online accreditation from which 18 were to be short-listed. However, now the PHF has retained only eight from that list while adding 10 new players who are yet to be accredited.

The PHF also sent names of six officials at the time of online accreditation and out of them only one remains with five new ones, including Oltmans and assistant coaches Muhammad Saqlain and Rehan Butt, being sent. Hasan Sardar was initially named as head coach but will now travel to the Games as manager.

Squad: Imran Butt, Mazhar Abbas, Mohammad Irfan Senior, Mohammad Faisal Qadir, Mubashar Ali, Mohammad Aleem Bilal, Tazeem-ul-Hassan, Ammad Shakeel Butt, Abu Bakar Mahmood, Mohammad Toseeq Arshad, Mohammad Rizwan Senior, Shafqat Rasool, Mohammad Dilber, Shan Irshad, Mohammad Irfan Junior, Rana Suhail Riaz, Mohammad Atiq, Samiullah.

Officials: Hassan Sardar (manager), Roelant Wouter Oltmans (head coach), Muhammad Saqlain, Rehan Butt (assistant coaches), Zafis Bin Talib (physio), Mohammad Nadeem Khan Lodhi (video analyst).

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2018