The Pakistan’s hockey team is faced with new crisis after doing away with the services of Dutch coach Michel van den Heuvel when the London Olympic Games are hardly four months away.

The expected decision was taken at the Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) Executive Board meeting which was held at Lahore on March 15. The meeting also appointed former Pakistan captain Akhtar Rasool Chaudhry as chief coach in place of Heuvel; the former is also the manger. Former Olympian Khawaja Junaid has been retained as coach with ex-Olympian Shahid Ali Khan as the goalkeeping coach.

The decision against the Dutch coach came after he was accused of violating the contract with the PHF, firstly for not joining Lahore camp and secondly for signing the contract with his country club. The Dutch coach has a two -year contract with the PHF till the London Olympic Games which commence on July 27 this year. However, as a professional, Heuvel was free to earn his livelihood and his contract with a local club is not a violation since his term with the Dutch club effectively begins after the London Olympics close.

In an interview Heuvel claims that he was ready to resume his coaching till the London Olympics but there were certain issues that needed to be resolved. It is generally believed that the coach had reservations regarding the inclusion of one or two players in the Lahore camp. Impartial observers are in favour of the Dutch coach as world over the coach’s word carries great weight in selection of players. At the end of the day, it is the coach who is responsible for the team’s success and failure and not the selection committee.

The pressure to remove the Dutch coach had been mounting for a long time on the PHF and this time the anti-coach group seems to have succeeded in its attempt. Pakistan hockey faced a similar situation on the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics when Islamabad sports bureaucracy intervened to replace Khalid Mahmood with Asif Bajwa as the PHF secretary just a month before the Olympics. Former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who had a long association with Pakistan hockey, was taken by complete surprise. Islamabad’s decision was considered totally unjustified and resulted in Pakistan’s worst-ever performance when they finished eighth in the 12-nation tournament.

Given that the PHF had spent an impressive sum in hiring Heuvel, sidelining him at the eve of London Olympics is not only unwise but a waste of public money. In future, it may become difficult for Pakistan to hire a foreign hockey coach for the national hockey team since we have set a negative precedence. Sacking the coach has not earned Pakistan a good name and the performance the Pakistani team would give under a new team management at London Olympic is anybody’s guess.