KARACHI: Over twenty former hockey players including the Olympians and internationals who had gathered at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday to register their protest over the shambolic state of the national game, appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take prompt steps to salvage it after the Pakistan failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup for the first ever time in Malaysia recently.
“When Pakistan ended up 12th in the 2010 World Cup, we could see what direction the hockey team was heading and today we have gathered to protest the sorry state of our national game,” said Olympian Shahnaz Sheikh.
“Between all of us who have gathered here today, we have won so many medals for Pakistan and these medals stare us in the face today as if mourning the state of the game in the country,” said Shahnaz. “For the past five years we have continued to hear bad or disastrous news about the game almost every other month. And it kills us each time.”
Shahnaz, obviously incensed by incumbent PHF regime’s poor show, continued to add: “And today, we are here to appeal to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif to make the right decision for hockey. Like several other things in Pakistan, hockey too, is at a make or break point now. Qasim Zia and Bajwa are our juniors and we believe that in their five years in office, despite huge amount of resources at their disposal, they donot have anything good to show for Pakistan hockey.”
“Hockey departments are finished, the academies are not working, there are no tournaments. So how are we going to produce good players? The poor results speak for themselves. It is imperative that the current PHF regime steps down and let someone who truly cares about the game work for its betterment,” insisted Shahnaz.
When asked if the Olympians had worked out an alternate plan to boost hockey fortunes, Shahnaz said: “We have done a lot of homework on the restructuring of hockey. We will increase the pool of players while involving the 128 affiliated units of hockey.”
“We already are running our own small clubs and academies in our areas to contribute something for this sport from our own meager resources. And we have done better than the PHF definitely.”
Former captain Islahuddin Siddiqui, while lashing out at the national team’s performance in the past five years, said it was a shame Pakistan could not qualify for the World Cup in The Netherlands in 2014.
“The World Cup tournament was launched by Pakistan and we of all people will be sitting out of the great tournament next year, what shame,” said Islah. “Winning and losing is all part of the game but losing to weaker sides or not measuring up to the nation’s expectations is something else. All the honours and laurels that we earned for Pakistan during our playing days have been lost by the current national hockey team,” he regretted. “What’s required now is immediate change. They only gave us one Asian Games gold medal in 2011 and the rest was only disgrace and shame.”
Islah went on to add: “The prime minister is dealing with so many problems in the country such as terrorism, bad economy, electricity crisis, floods, etc. He should look into the hockey crisis too because the game is dying here and must be saved at all cost.”
“This is the game that got Pakistan positive international recognition. Mian Nawaz Sharif was the prime minister when Pakistan won its last Olympic medal, a bronze, in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It would be befitting for him to take steps to revive the game now, either constitutionally or by imposing an ad hoc on PHF. But please don’t let the people there play musical chairs anymore,” he said.
Another ex-Olympian goalkeeper Qamar Zia showed all the recent clippings of newspapers to the media which highlighted the various protests organised throughout the country against the PHF following Pakistan’s failure to win the Asia Cup in Malaysia.
“You can see here how women are offering bangles to the team for their poor faring in events, how people are taking out mock funerals of the national team and why Greenshirts have been put in a hall of shame,” he said. “But it is really the people at the top, those running the affairs of the PHF, who deserve the brickbats,” said Qamar.
Besides Islah, Shahnaz and Qamar, the meeting was also attended by ex-Olympians Wasim Feroze, Rashid-ul-Hassan, Ayaz Mahmood, Kamran Ashraf, Qamar Ibrahim, Irfan Sr and internationals Qamar Riaz, Masood-ur-Rehman (Pappa), Laeeq Lashari, Pervez Iqbal, Adnan Husain, Sameer Husain, Khalid Paracha and Arif Bhopali and Akhtar-ul-Islam. Stalwarts Samiullah and Shahbaz Sr backed the campaign through telephonic contact.
