PHF plans multiple events in August, September

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is preparing for various events of national senior men and women teams and national under-18 team’s visit to Bangladesh, ‘The News’ learnt on Wednesday.

A number of domestic events will also be organised in the country in August and September, including the 2nd COAS Gold Cup Hockey Championship, Pakistan’s first 9-a-side hockey tournament, 29th national women championship.

After these events, PHF will start inter-district and school hockey events, PHF’s director development Naveed Alam said.

He said that the final dates would be announced soon. He added that 29th National Women Hockey Championship would be organised in Bahawalpur in mid-August.

The performance of the players in the women hockey championship will be the criteria for selection in national women team that would participate in the Asian Women Hockey championship in Qatar in November.

Naveed said he had started a survey for the revival of school hockey at the grassroots level. He said he had started identifying schools in Bahawalpur that had interest in hockey. He added that soon he would visit Sindh.

The PHF plans to lay 500 small astro turfs across the country for school-level competitions. The PHF is also working on a plan to organise a 9-a-side championship in Karachi under floodlights.

The PHF’s president and secretary will soon visit Karachi to review the preparation for the 9-a-side championship, which may be held in late August or September.

The camp for preparing the national senior team for Asian Champions Trophy, which will be held in November in Qatar, has begun in Lahore from July 19. Olympian Khawaja Junaid is coaching the seniors.

Pakistan’s national under-18 team’s training camp is underway in Lahore for the Youth Asia Cup, scheduled to be held in Dhaka in September.

Olympian Kamran Ashraf is the chief coach at the training camp. The sources said that PHF was also working on women team’s tour to Thailand and junior under-21 team’s second leg of European tour after their return from Germany. Things would become clear after financial assistance from the federal government was known, the sources added.

Meanwhile, PHF president Brig (Rtd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar and secretary Shahbaz Ahmad expressed their profound grief over the demise of Farhat Nur Khan, wife of late Air Marshal Nur Khan. 

Pakistan hockey achieved great feats during Air Marshal Nur Khan’s two tenures as the president PHF (1967-69 and 1976-84). Pakistan won Olympics, World Cup and Asian Games under his management.