Prime Minister urged to sack PHF top brass

KARACHI: Former hockey players and officials demanded on Saturday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sack all PHF officials and make public the audit report of use of Rs1.4 billon during the past seven years.
The IPC minister Riaz Pirzada established a committee headed by IPC secretary Ijaz Chaudhary and including Col Mudassir Asghar, Olympian Shahbaz Ahmed Senior, Khawaja Junaid and PSB’s Akhtar Nawaz Gangera. The PM has asked the ministry to submit a report within a week.
“The reasons are obvious and everybody knows how the affairs of hockey had been run for the past seven years,” said a former Olympian.
Former players said constituting a committee instead of sacking the officials was surprising as they had destroyed the game. “Everybody knows how they misused Rs1.4 billion of public money for their personal benefits and helping their cronies,” said a former player.
“What inquiry is now required? Isn’t it clear enough? A few days before the Olympics Qualifying rounds, PHF shut down the team’s training camp to blackmail the federal government,” he said.
“And then three coaches of the team were not sent along with the team, but PHF president Akhtar Rasool, secretary Rana Mujahid, and a former secretary were in Belgium on joy trips,” he added.
Olympian Sameer Hussain, who did not go with the Green-shirts despite being a part of the coaching staff, said that time had come to inform the nation about the truth as there was huge mistrust among the PHF officials.
He said that Pakistan’s bench was weak in Belgium because the coaches’ team had been broken and newly-appointed Danish Kaleem did not know how to deal with the critical phase. “The absence of the coaches was the main reason for Pakistan’s failure. The coaches who took the Green-shirts successfully through two major events were excluded at a time when their services mattered most,” he said.
Qamar Zia, spokesman of the group of hockey Olympians which has been criticising the PHF’s bosses for past several years, said the government failed to understand the sentiments of the common citizens of the country.
He said some of the PHF officials and players had realised what damage had been caused to Pakistan’s national game. “Captain Muhammad Imran and members of selection committee Ayaz Mehmood and Khalid Bahsir have resigned. But the PHF president and the secretary are not ready to resign and still lobbying to save their skin or bring their close aides in the new setup of PHF in case the government removed them,” he said. Qamar said that overall decline in the national hockey was the result of policies of “a gang of four who are former president of PHF Qasim Zia, former secretary Asif Bajwa, the present PHF president Akhtar Rasool, and secretary Rana Mujahid. “Our group of former Olympians will hold a press conference in a day or two and express our point of view on this debacle,” he said.
Sources said they suspect the five-member committee appointed by the PM would not do justice as it was believed that the members of this committee were close to PHF’s present officials.