‘Cutting coaching staff led to Olympics ouster’

KARACHI: The group of former Olympian which has been criticising the PHF for its wrongdoings and misuse of funds has applauded the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s intervention in the hockey affairs through establishment of a five-member inquiry committee.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi at the residence of Olympian Qamar Zia, they demanded the government sack the PHF officials and set up an ad hoc body till PHF elections are held.
Olympian Jehangir Butt said a musical chairs game had been played in the PHF for seven years and one lobby dominated it through different faces.
Olympian Rasheedul Hasan said that his associates and all hockey community commended the PM’s decision to appoint the committee but had reservations on the inclusion of Shahbaz Ahmed Sr. “He was adviser to Akhtar Rasool. How can he be impartial in this inquiry,” he said.
He said that seeing the disastrous show in Belgium, Shahbaz Sr had started issued statements against PHF. “Otherwise he was a close associate of PHF bosses,” he said.
Rasheed alleged that a high official of PHF demanded bribe from local hockey organisers for permits to organise competitions. “So one can consider how corrupt this management is. It did nothing to promote hockey and those who wanted to organise events were asked to pay bribes,” he said.
Olympian Ayaz Mehmood, who had been a member of the selection committee and had resigned two days ago, said that when Pakistan team was going to Australia, he had pointed to chief coach Shahnaz Sheikh that many players looked less than 100 percent fit.
He said that he did not participate in the meeting of the selection committee which selected the squad for Belgium.
Ayaz said it should be investigated why the winning combination of coaches was broken and Danish Kaleem inducted at this stage when Pakistan were going to participate in the Olympics qualifying round.
Ayaz said that the exclusion of the three coaches who had played a vital role in Pakistan’s silver medal finish in two successive major tournaments proved the turning point.
Qamar said that after this humiliation, the group of Olympians had been once again activated. He said they had been pointing out the wrongdoings of the hockey authorities, but the rulers of the country failed to pay attention.
It is the first time since 1948 that Pakistan have failed to qualify for the Olympics, he said.
He said that there is need to appoint people with clean image in an ad hoc committee to run the hockey affairs till new elections. He said that PHF elections were fake and illegal; and the election commission had not issued its notification yet about the president and secretary.
He said the audit committee had traced huge misuse of funds in PHF and reports had appeared that Rs200 million had been plundered by PHF officials. He demanded that the audit committee reports should be made public. Olympian Kaleem Ullah and Waseem Feroz were also present on the occasion.