LAHORE: In yet another twist to the swiftly-changing situation of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) affairs, the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has instructed its own committee not to hold the federation’s elections, due to start on Friday, which were announced by Nasir Ali, one of the members of the four-member committee.

In a letter written to retired Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar as chairman of the four-member committee on Aug 3, the instructions read, “Furthermore, a summary to the Prime Minister/Patron-in-Chief PHF has been submitted by the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC) regarding PHF affairs. Therefore, till response from the PM Office, the elections may be withheld.”

Interestingly, so far Brig Khokhar has not accepted the four-member committee as he is working as PHF president.

Moreover, when the PSB formed the said committee on July 21 Brig Khokhar was mentioned as a member of the committee. However, in the letter issued on Aug 3, he was addressed as the chairman of the committee.

In a recent interview with Dawn, Brig Khokhar had vowed that he would only follow the PHF constitution that empowers him to hold fresh elections. But if he accepts the PSB-appointed committee, it would be against the PHF constitution as the body was formed to hold the elections within the next 30 days.

On Saturday, PHF’s media department issued a press release announcing the schedule of the elections to be held from Aug 5 to 19 from club to national level. It was announced by Nasir, one of the members of the four-member committee, without the consent of the other three members — Khalid, Rehan Butt and Arshad.

According to the latest PSB letter, “It has been learnt that an elective meeting of PHF office-bearers has been convened on Aug 5, 2022 in Lahore. It is worth mentioning here that the representative of the PSB was also part of the said committee. However, he was not taken on board while calling such a meeting. Moreover, no legal and constitutional formalities were fulfilled such as no election schedule was announced, no voter list was conveyed for inviting objections, if any, no schedule/deadline for submission of nomination papers of the office bearers to contest the elections of the PHF was circulated.

“Holding elections of the PHF by ignoring the lawful modus operandi shall have no legal sanctity in the eyes of law and shall lead to initiation of legal proceedings by different factions of hockey, ultimately culminating at having an adverse effect on Pakistan Hockey,” the letter added.

It may be mentioned here that PSB’s interference in the PHF affairs could persuade the International Hockey Federation (FIH) to take action against Pakistan including suspending its membership, as the FIFA had done in the case of the Pakistan Football Federation and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the case of the POA.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2022