KARACHI, April 24: Controversial former Pakistan full-back Naveed Alam has been given yet another post by Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), this time of associate secretary.

The Olympian, who was lobbying for the PHF post a day before the elections on April 2, would be the third associate secretary who has been appointed in direct violation of the constitution.

Naveed, who was banned for two years for seriously injuring umpire Salman Zaidi in a brawl at a national championship match in Peshawar during the mid-90s, has already been made in-charge of hockey academy in Lahore.

PHF secretary Khalid Mahmood on Tuesday confirmed that Naveed had been appointed associate secretary but was not sure which academy he would be running. “Naveed has been appointed third associate secretary. We will decide later what role he would be focussing on. But there is no PHF academy in Lahore and Naveed was in fact running a PHA hockey academy there.

“I believe Naveed might now be made in-charge of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) hockey academy, to be built in Lahore as well as in Karachi. But I am not sure which academy the PHF president referred to on April 2 at the press briefing,” Khalid told Dawn.According to the PHF constitution, there should be only two associate secretaries and any amendment to the constitution can only be made by the Congress after proposed amendments are put by the Council. The procedure was clearly not followed since Congress met first before the Council meeting on the elections day.

PHF had also come under fire at Congress meeting during polls when at least two Council members – Barrister Shahida Jamil and Lt-Col Nadeem Ahmad – raised objections over “election” of six instead of two vice-presidents.

PHF constitution says there should be only two vice-presidents in the set-up. PHF president Zafarullah Jamali had announced the same day that he would soon “appoint” a third associate secretary after it gets authorised by the Congress.

Jamali had promised that Naveed would be “accommodated” in the PHF the day when he tendered resignation as Punjab Hockey Association (PHA) secretary on PHF chief’s request to settle the dispute among the two groups.

Not only the PHF has made a strange choice in Naveed but Ramzan Jamali, who revolted against PHF just few weeks ago by forming a parallel Sindh Hockey Association (SHA), had also been elected one of the two associate secretaries earlier.

It was also a blatant violation of PHF constitution which clearly says that a person floating a parallel association at any level should be declared persona-non-grata and be debarred for life from PHF activities.