KARACHI, June 17: The technical officials of the President’s Gold Cup hockey tournament on Sunday failed to give their decision on HBL’s protest against Steel Mills for fielding players from other departments without the NOCs.

The tournament director Shamsuz Zaman said he had prepared a written reply for HBL who had protested against Steel Mills on Saturday for including two KESC players and one from Police, but the bank officials didn’t show up.

“I have asked them (HBL) to provide proof that the players who, according to them, are not Steel Mills players, but nobody approached me today,” the tournament director claimed.

Interestingly, he said he didn’t ask Steel Mills to submit proof that they had players with NOC from their previous departments, saying it was HBL’s responsibility to prove their claims.

He didn’t have a convincing reply when asked how HBL could prove it since players against whom they have raised objections are from KESC and Police.

HBL team manager Waheed Mirza said technical officials should ask Steel Mills to provide the NOCs as proof to ensure the trio were bona fide members of their hockey team.

“As three players against whose inclusion in the Steel Mills we have protested are not our employees, how are we supposed to provide any proof? Instead, tournament director should have asked Steel Mills to provide NOCs if they have any,” said the HBL official.

HBL had protest against Steel Mills, claiming they had included Irfan Ali and Waseem Ahmad, who are KESC players and Shahid Waseem who is a permanent employee of the Police department. HBL had claimed three players had been representing Steel Mills without NOC’s from KESC and Police.

The tournament director, however, said the Karachi Hockey Association which hosted the event, would ask the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) to clarify the period for transfer of players and the related rules.

However, the PHF constitution says players can switch over to other department in January and July, while playing without NOC from previous departments is a clear violation of rules.

The tournament was marred with several protests from teams against rival outfits for fielding players without NOC. KESC had also protested against Steel Mills for including Irfan and Waseem, while HBL also protested against Port Qasim Authority for fielding a Wapda player, Atif Yaqoob.

Astonishingly, both the PHF and the tournament director are still clueless whether PQA have playing rights as they failed to prove that the new entrants have been awarded right to play.