Pakistan out of World Volleyball C’ships Qualifiers

Coach lambasts refereeing standard

KARACHI: Pakistan senior volleyball team lost to Kazakhstan 2-3 after a tough game of the zonal round of the 2018 Men’s World Volleyball Championships Qualifiers in Kyrgyzstan late Saturday.

Pakistan’s coach Hamid Movahidi, who is an Iranian, blamed what he called biased refereeing for Pakistan’s defeat. “The issue is that in the whole tournament referees from Thailand, Maldives and Kazakhstan had been assigned the task to supervise the matches. Their standard was too low. They are fit for school-level matches, not for these high-level competitions,” Hamid said.

The coach said he told Pakistan Volleyball Federation’s (PVF) chairman Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob to file a protest with the Asian Volleyball Council (AVC) and world volleyball governing body (FIVB) for the way Pakistan team was treated.

Hamid said Kazakhstan was no doubt a tough team with five Russian origin players. “Kazakhstan also has the experience of playing in the European League. But we had made good preparations. I had shown the boys videos of Kazakhstan and they played really well against them,” he said.

He said Pakistan did not get any recovery period as they played against hosts Kyrgyzstan the other day and had beaten them 3-2.

“Kazakhstan were fresh, on the other hand,” Hamid said.

“When we proceeded to Kyrgyzstan from Baku after the Islamic Games we requested the hosts to give us some rest and said that Kyrgyzstan should play the first match against Kazakhstan but our request was turned down,” Hamid said.

He also alleged that Pakistan had not been given a good hotel as compared to the one which had been allotted to Kazakhstan.

PVF chairman Yaqoob, who watched the game between Pakistan and Kazakhstan, said, “When it was a 2-2 draw against Kazakhstan, in the last set referee gave three wrong decisions against Pakistan. We are going to protest. In the review it will be clear that Kazakhstan player made a foul while crossing the ball. And then Kazakhstan player hit the ball out but the referee signaled that Pakistani player had touched the net. It became 14-13. And finally Pakistan attacked and hit the ball in but the referee signaled that it was out. It was biased refereeing,” Yaqoob said.

“The team played very well altogether,” he was quick to add. The score was 25-21, 22-25, 22-25, 25-18 and 13-15 in Kazakhstan’s favour.