PHF set to take drastic measures

KARACHI: An important meeting of PHF high officials will be held in a few days in Islamabad to review the overall performance of Pakistan in the qualifying round for World Cup 2018, ‘The News’ learnt on Tuesday. The meeting will be presided over by PHF president Brig (rtd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar.

The sources said that the PHF chiefs would discuss Pakistan’s poor performance in London where the Green-shirts lost five matches out of seven. The two matches they won were against low-ranked teams.

Although Pakistan managed to qualify for the World Cup by getting the seventh place, questions have been raised about the defeats in the pool matches and the quarter-final by big margins.

The sources said that the PHF management was likely to take drastic actions. The performance of head coach Khwaja Junaid, manager Hanif Khan, assistant manager Ahmed Alam and team official Col Mohsin would be reviewed. 

The sources said the PHF had provided all possible facilities to the players and the team management but the results were not satisfactory. “The margin of the defeats is worrying,” said a source.

The experiment of playing with junior players in such a big event, the qualifying round for World Cup, would also be discussed, the sources said. The team management has already admitted that the performance was not satisfactory. But it has argued that the team was defeated by high-ranked teams who had players with experience of 100 to 200 international matches. It says Pakistan players did not have much experience of international tournaments. Five players were participating for the first time in any international tournament, it adds.

The meeting will also discuss the domestic events, promotion of hockey at grassroots level and plans for Pakistan senior and junior teams’ future competitions. The senior team is to appear in Asia Cup in October in Bangladesh.