KARACHI, Sept 13: The International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Wednesday announced the nominations for the 2006 World Hockey Men's Player of the Year awards with two Dutch, two Australians and four other players including Pakistan’s Shakeel Abbasi in run for the award.

According to information received from FIH, Pakistani forward Shakeel Abbasi is nominated for Young Player of Year award in under-23 age group.

Nominees for World Hockey Men's Player of the Year award 2006 are: Pol Amat (Spain), Ryan Archibald (New Zealand), Philipp Crone (Germany) Teun de Nooijer and Jeroen Delmee (Netherlands), Brent Livermore and Stephen Mowlam (Australia) and Yong Bae Kim (Korea).

Nominees for Young Player of the Year award 2006 (under-23) are: Shakeel Abbasi (Pakistan), David Algre (Spain), Santi Frexia (Spain), Mark Knowles (Australia), Robert Van der Horst (Netherlands), Christopher Zeller (Germany).

Nominations were decided by a panel of World Cup coaches and international media representatives. The award winners will be determined by a ballot of players and coaches from the 12 competing teams at the Hockey World Cup, being held in Monchengladbach, Germany.

The awards will be presented by IOC President Jacques Rogge and FIH President Els van Breda Vriesman on Saturday.

Meanwhile, sponsors will have major say in FIH’s decision of awarding the next World Cup, Vriesman said on Wednesday.

“Hockey has come out of traditions and now the sponsors will have a big say in deciding the venue for the next World Cups,” Breda said. “Traditionally, we did not used to have sponsors and we can not allow the World Cup to go to the country where our sponsors are not happy with,” she said.—APP