‘No new talent identified in national championship’

KARACHI: Former Olympians, district hockey organisers and clubs owners have alleged that a large number of talented players were not allowed to play in the national hockey championship because they were not among the favourites of PHF, ‘The News’ has learnt.
Olympian Saleem Nazim, Naveed Alam and club owners said that due to blunders and wrong policies of PHF the game of hockey has been restricted to Faisalabad and Sialkot as a number of players were deprived of the chance to show their skills in the recent national hockey championship.
Saleem owns various clubs and coaches local players but his clubs have been made victims of the scrutiny process. Thus, dozens of the players of these clubs could not participate in the national hockey championship. Saleem has already challenged the PHF’s scrutiny process in the court.
He said that Punjab hockey association did not have its own office. “How can they run the hockey affairs in Punjab!” he said.
He asked where PHF academies’ players were and why only a few dozen players appeared in the two-day open trials for the national team conducted in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city with a population of 18 million.
Chief selector Islahuddin, juniors’ chief coach Manzoorul Hasan and PHF president Akhtar Rasool were not present during the entire national championship.
“How will they identify the young talent? It is the national championship where 50 to 60 new players are identified for grooming,” he said.
Naved Alam, a sharp critic of PHF, said that a player of NBP, who belonged to Okara and has played for Pakistan junior team, was not allowed to represent his department. Instead he was pressurised to play for Pakistan Steel Mills, he added.
He said that only those players were allowed to play in the national championship who were playing under the supervision of PHF-appointed persons in the academies or those of departments and provincial teams who were among their favourites.
Clubs and academies owned by a number of former Olympians and international players had been victimised and their players were not allowed to participate in the national hockey championship.
Naveed asked how hockey could be promoted in the country when a large number of players had been deprived of participation in the national championship.
He said it was surprising that PHF president Akhtar Rasool, chief selector Islahuddin, and chief coach of junior team Manzoorul Hasan were not present during the entire championship.
He alleged that PHF was still being run by those people who had destroyed the game but resigned for face saving when Pakistan failed to qualify for the World Cup and appointed the present set up through fake elections.
Naveed alleged that a teenage boy who did not even have national identity card played the national championship for Police because his father was close to PHF officials but dozens of other talented players were not allowed to participate in the county’s biggest hockey event.
He disclosed that the club of Riaz Mehar, who organised Nishan-e-Hadier hockey tournament for a long time, was not given registration, which kept his boys away from the national-level competitions.
The players of Rasheed-ul-Hasan hockey academy in Gojra, which is considered the biggest hockey nursery in the subcontinent, was also cut off from the mainstream, said Naveed.