Around a dozen foreign players roped in for PSHL

KARACHI: At least 12 foreign players, from various European countries and Argentina, will participate in the Pakistan Super Hockey League (PSHL) which will have six teams, ‘The News’ learnt on Thursday.

The league will be held in Lahore from January 12-19.

There would be no player from Australia or any Asian country, a source said.

The source said players would be coming from Germany, Holland, Spain, Belgium, France and Argentina would be part of the league.

Each team will have the services of two foreign players in a match.

The six teams will be named after the important cities of the country: Karachi Kararay, Lahori Ustad, Peshawar Dilawar, Multan Sufiyan, Islamabad Commander, and Quetta Defender.

The publicity and marketing of the event will be launched from December 25 in various cities of the country. All the matches of the PSHL will be played in Lahore. PHF is trying to arrange live telecast of the league, a source said. He added that the details of the PSHL would be made public at the end of the ongoing Hockey Series Open.

The details of the bidding process for the players and other matters would be available on the website, the source said.

The sources said that Pakistan hockey team’s ranking was not high, but PHF wanted to organise a high-quality league and so it was inviting players from European countries and Olympic champions Argentina.

As the PHF wanted to groom young players through this league, it was putting an age restriction for local players, the sources said. They added that keeping in mind the future needs of the country, PHF had decided that players above the age of 25 would not be eligible for the league.