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Although the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has plans to present huge cash prizes for the winners and runners-up, the 10-team event which ends on Sept 18 will be held with some representatives from Punjab protesting over what they said is discrimination by the PHF and the Punjab body.
Olympians Khalid Mahmood, Tahir Zaman, Mansoor Ahmad and Naveed Alam had recently held a rally against PHF and Punjab Hockey Association (PHA), alleging that although Punjab had nine regions, only four had been invited for the league.
The present secretary of PHF (Asif Bajwa) is running hockey on the basis on favouritism and vendetta. A new region, Sialkot, has been created since Bajwa belongs to that city, while Rawalpindi, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, D.G Khan, Sargodha have been excluded from the league only because there are some people who oppose Bajwa's damaging policies, Naveed told Dawn.com on Monday.
While the allegations by the Olympians have made the criteria for the invitation for the league dubious, the holding of the tournament during Ramazan and monsoon season might also create problems for the participating teams.
As Karachi faces power outages for long spells, it can also pose difficulties for the organisers since the third match of the day is to be played at 9.30pm under floodlights. Although apparently, organisers have arranged electricity generators, usually it doesn't work if one considers past experiences during night events at HCP.
Slippery conditions and uneven surface might also cause injuries to the players. The pitch has already been declared unplayable by the tournament director Hanif Khan.
According to Hanif, 10 teams to take part are Islamabad, Peshawar, Sialkot, Lahore, Faisalabad, Abbottabad, Karachi, Larkana, Quetta and Multan.
The winners will receive Rs700,000, runners-up Rs500,000 and second runners-up Rs200,000. The best player of the league will be presented Rs100,000, best goalkeeper Rs50,000, while Rs5,000 will be for the player of the match.
Hanif said the matches with three halves would be of 70 minutes duration with first two halves of 25 minutes each while the final session would be of 20 minutes. The teams will have seven and a half minutes rest in between the halves.
'If a dangerous foul is committed by a defender within 25 yards, then the attacker and the goalkeeper will be given 10 seconds. It will be one-to-one match between the two. Same will be the criteria if there is offence by the defender within the circle.
'In case the attacker has open chance and is about to score but he is tackled dangerously within the circle then it will be a penalty stroke as usual. But if the umpire is not sure if the player was in a position to score, then it will be a one-to-one between him and the goalkeeper,' said Hanif.
Interestingly, PHF has not announced the organizing secretary for the event which will see 20-member squads and at least 18 men on the bench during the games.
The first match rolls of at 4.30pm, second at 5.30pm while the third at 9.30pm under lights.
