Government assures PHF of annual grant

KARACHI: PHF president Brig (rtd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar and secretary Shahbaz Ahmed called on the principal secretary of PM Nawaz Sharif, Fawad Hasan, at Prime Minister House the other day and briefed him about the progress in the revival of the national game in the country, ‘The News’ learnt on Friday.

Informed sources said that the president and the secretary informed the official about the efforts made to revive the national game.

They gave a presentation about the future plans as well. The PHF is organising various domestic hockey tournaments with handsome amount of prize money so that once again a hockey culture could be established in the country.

Pakistan are currently out of the big hockey events such as World Cup and Olympics. The current PHF management has targeted qualification for 2020 Olympics. The sources said that the principal secretary of PM assured the PHF officials that the government would provide full support for the revival of the national game.

The principal secretary also assured them the financial needs of PHF would be met. It was also learnt that the government had decided in principle that a handsome amount of money on annual basis would be provided to PHF so that the hockey development plans went on smoothly.

Khokhar and Shahbaz were going to Malaysia late Friday night to meet the officials of Asian Hockey Federation and Malaysian Hockey Federation to talk about various developments plants related to the revival of the national game in the country.