Financial woes: PHF vows to send team for Asian Champions Trophy

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Brig (rtd) Khalid Khokhar has vowed that despite the financial crunch the team would go to Oman for Asian Champions Trophy, scheduled to be organised from October 18-28.

Talking to ‘The News’ on Sunday Khokhar said that financial issues had created problems but PHF was working hard to arrange the required funds to send the team to Oman.

“We lost in the Asian Games, but that doesn’t mean that we lost confidence, hope and motivation to achieve successes in the national game. Unfortunately due to a few mistakes of the players, the Green-shirts failed to reach the podium in the Asian Games,” Khokhar said.

He added the Asians Champions Trophy was the last big event before the World Cup in India in December. “To finalise our preparation for the big event, sending the Green-shirts to Oman is necessary, where all big Asian team will compete,” he said.

Pakistan are to play against South Korea on October 19, India on 21, Japan on 24 and Malaysia on 25. The semi finals of the event will be played on 27 and final on 28.

“We provided the best facilities of training and coaching to our players,” the PHF president said. “We appointed foreign coaches not long ago. Pakistan played three big tournaments under the coaching of Roelant Oltmans. The Green-shirts failed to win the Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games, but they fought bravely and defeated some big guns in both events. We hoped that they would play well and win the Asian Games, but they failed. There is no other way to progress but to play maximum international events. We lost matches by a margin of only one goal. And we conceded the least number of goals in Asian Games. It means the Green-shirts have learnt a lot under Oltmans,” he added.

He said he was contacting the federal government as well as the private sector to resolve the financial issues. It may be noted here that the caretaker government did not release the funds to PHF when the team was due to participate in the Asian Games in Indonesia. Khokhar arranged funds through his personal contacts to send the team.