Another change of guard in Pak hockey

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has changed the national selection committee and team management for the third time in the last two years, handing over the team management to former chief selector Hasan Sardar and giving selection powers to Salahuddin Siddique.

Reehan Butt and Muhammad Saqlain were named assistant coaches.These decisions were taken in the meeting of PHF Congress, which were later announced by the Brig (r) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar at a press briefing.

In two years time since Khokhar took over as the president of the federation, this is the third time that selection committee and team management has been changed. In the beginning Khawaja Junaid was appointed manager and Rashid Junior as chief selector. Following the disastrous performance in the World Hockey League Semi-Final, the team management and selection committee was changed again as Farhat Khan took over as the new manager with Hasan Sardar getting the job of chief selector.

After yet another debacle in the Asia Cup and later four-nation hockey in Australia, the team management was shown the door once again. Hasan Sardar has now become the team manager with Islahuddin Siddique as chief selector of the team.

The PHF president said that they were given Rs330 million by federal government in recent times. “We have been given cash of Rs330 million and have got all the records with us.”However, during the meeting no hard copies of any expenditures or audit were distributed amongst the members of the Congress.

According to the estimate, the PHF has spent around Rs480 million during the last two years. That was before the Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah’s donation of Rs110 million.“Even no activity report was presented before the Congress members. Even the audit report was not given to Congress members,” one of the members said.

He quoted Khokhar as saying that the hard copy of audit would be presented to all the members within two weeks.The PHF president announced that scrutiny of all the PHF units would be conducted next month followed by elections.

“The PHF has never defaulted. “We are not defaulters or own money to any organisation.”Meanwhile, the Peshawar High Court in a decision Thursday allowed genuinely elected KP Hockey Association to attend the Congress meeting.

Zahir and 12 members of the KP association were allowed to attend the Congress meeting after the decision.Zahir during the meeting demanded hard copies of all the expenditures and audit reports.

“It is a constitutional obligation under 12.96 which says that audited hard copies of all the expenditures and audit report would be given to all the members during every meeting of the Congress. This also includes budget estimate for the next year.”