LAHORE: A women’s hockey camp that never took place cost around Rs2million to the Pakistan Hockey Federation, documents available with Dawn show, with those funds likely to have gone to some officials of the PHF.

According to the details available to Dawn, a training camp for women was set to be held in 2017-18 at a cost of around Rs2million. According to the official documents of the PHF, Olympian Saeed Khan was the manager for the training camp and the summary for the bill was passed with his signature.

However, Saeed denied he had supervised any such camp when asked by the PHF.

“This is not my signature and neither do I have the knowledge of this camp,” was his reply. “Please don’t let anyone escape who has done bad with Pakistan.”

Saeed was reluctant to speak when asked to comment on the matter on Wednesday. “I’ve already told the PHF the factual position of the camp and am not willing to speak about it in the media,” he told Dawn from Paris.

PHF’s financial affairs are already under the scanner with the Auditor General of Pakistan having already raised 113 objections.

On the instructions of then-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination began an investigation last year.

Dawn has learnt that the IPC Ministry had sought all the relative records about the 113 objections from the PHF but is yet to handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency to start the proper investigation.

The IPC has also not been able to start the investigation in another alleged corrupt practice of the PHF, with a parallel account also being operated with the federation having no record of it.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2023