LAHORE: As Pakistan hockey faces the worst crisis of its history, former Olympian Asif Bajwa has again been appointed as secretary of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) replacing another ex-Olympian Shahbaz Ahmed Senior.

Bajwa held the position of PHF secretary from 2008 till 2013 with Qasim Zia as the federation president.

Though that period (2008-13) had also failed to bring any visible improvement in Pakistan hockey which has gradually declined since the greenshirts’ memorable triumph at the 1994 World Cup, the current situation faced by the country’s hockey seems to worsening alarmingly.

What worse than this: Pakistan, the 1960, 1968 and 1984 Olympic champions, may not even qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics! To add to the country’s woes in the game, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) has imposed cash penalty on the PHF for not fulfilling its commitment of fielding its team in the FIH Pro-League, a newly introduced event in place of the Champions Trophy, earlier this year.

PHF president retired Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar has announced that Bajwa will start functioning as secretary from Monday after the president had accepted the resignation of Shahbaz. The PHF president appreciated the work Shahbaz had done during his tenure as the federation’s secretary.

A good number of former Olympians have criticised the PHF headed by Khokhar since 2016, as the game has been facing one crisis after another during the tenure of present PHF regime. And though a number of ex-Olympians of late have been appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan to remove the entire PHF set-up, no action has been taken so far in this regard.

Following the team’s pathetic performance in the 2018 World Cup and fearing failure of the PHF in entering the national team in the FIH Pro League Shahbaz resigned from the post in December last year as Khokhar first appointed Ayaz Khan as PHF associate secretary, but then within days he changed him to appoint Ikhlaq Usmani as the federation’s acting secretary.

However, soon in a surprise move, Shahbaz again came to the scene as Khokhar announced in February this year that he did not accept Shahbaz’s resignation he tendered in December.

Meanwhile when contacted, Asif told Dawn that though he had accepted the job it was a challenge, adding he would try his best to come up to the expectations of the PHF president.

Asif further said that he was not in a position to say anything about his plans, saying after assuming the charge he would analyse the situation before announcing his plans.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2019