‘Hockey league in October, November’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is making efforts to hold National Hockey League (NHL) at home soil as the authorities concerned have given foolproof security assurance for the foreigners turning up for the event.

PHF president Brig (Rtd) Khalid Khokhar during a Meet the Press programme on Tuesday confirmed that there was possibility that the inaugural league in October and November would be staged in the country. “Some of the foreign players have confirmed traveling to Pakistan to participate in the league,” he said.

He hinted that there would be five teams in the inaugural league. “We are finalising the details,” he said.

The PHF president said that the PM Office had been approached for long-term and short-term financial support. “We are pursuing Vision 2020 for which we need government’s support. Since taking over PHF we have been given around Rs90 million grant. We are taking care of each and every penny as the money belongs to players and we are only the custodians,” he said.

Khokhar said a few months back, Pakistan had a pool of only 50 professional players. “In a short span of time we have raised the strength of players to 130. We need to further improve the strength. Negotiations are under way with some multinationals, ZTBL, Sui Northern Gas and Civil Aviation to build their teams. We need to improve players’ financial condition and that we can only do if we give jobs to players so that they can only concentrate on playing hockey,” he added.

He also announced formulating a fresh PHF constitution. “We have been following the 2010 constitution, but there is a lot of room to improve. We have decided to make some amendments to the constitution for which a committee has been formed,” Khokhar said.

He said regularising school hockey was an important task. “It is a challenge for us and we are moving in that direction. We have picked schools where we are planning to start hockey soon. We have planned to introduce small artificial turfs for kids and young players,” he added.

The PHF president said academies would be established at those places from where Pakistan had been getting talented players.

Khokhar backed Khawaja Junaid and Hanif Khan as national coaches, saying he was hopeful that they would deliver.

PHF president also announced imposing ban on Tiger Club Islamabad that hosted a recent indoor event with the help of a former player Aamir Suleman who was allegedly involved in human trafficking.