LAHORE: Poor planning by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has once again been exposed as it has cancelled the national junior team’s tour to Argentina, which was to start from Feb 5, on the pretext of inadequate funds.

It is significant to mention here that the preparations for the said tour had started plus the team had also been selected.

The final phase of the training camp for the above-mentioned tour was to be set up from Saturday in Karachi where the selected players of the national team were to participate.

Recently, the PHF also pitted its junior team against the touring World XI side in a two-match series as part of preparations for the Argentina tour.

However, now all of a sudden the federation realised that the said tour would be too expensive to manage, particularly the air travel.

“As the PHF has decided to fully concentrate on the senior team, the junior side’s tour to Argentine has been cancelled. It would have been a very costly exercise, especially the air travel to Argentina,” a press release issued by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) said.

“The PHF has sent a message of regret to the Argen­tine Hockey Confe­deration, who were quite keen to host Pakistan juniors.”

Unfortunately, the incumbent PHF body headed by retired Brig Sajjad Khokhar with Shahbaz Ahmed Senior as secretary has a long list of such poor planning.

Last year, the PHF failed to send the team to the Junior World Cup held in India because of not applying for visa for the team in time.

The PHF, which spent millions of rupees on preparing the team for the Junior World Cup, due to its own mistake in management, deprived many national players of the opportunity to compete in the mega event.

Meanwhile, the PHF press release added, “The year 2018 is very important for Pakistan’s national [senior] hockey team. There are three quadrennial title tournaments this year: Com­monwealth Games, Asian Games and then the biggest of them, the World Cup.

Pakistan has been included in the Champions Trophy. Pakistan would also be figuring in a three-nation tournament in Oman beginning from Feb 14.

“These two events, Champions Trophy and the Oman three-nation event, were not part of the original annual calendar of the PHF. So the federation has to make some budgetary adjustments.”

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2018