PHF striving to lift national game despite constraints: Khokhar

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Brig (rtd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar has said that the federation despite facing shortage of funds is doing hard work for the betterment and progress of the national game.

The PHF president stated in a press release on Sunday that recent meetings with PM Imran Khan, COAS Qamar Bajwa, IPC minister and the chief minsters would bring positive result and resolve the financial issues.

He was optimistic that with the availability of the required amount of funds PHF would be able to resume the journey of success. The PHF president said that PHF is launching talent hunt programmes in Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to find fresh talent.

Khokhar said that PHF always used funds in the right places. He said that it is true that there is a severe shortage of hockey infrastructure in Pakistan. “In Netherlands, alone, there are more than 500 modern hockey turfs. While in Pakistan there are a dozen hockey turfs but we must remember that Pakistan has won the Olympic gold medal thrice and won world cups four times by playing on the same dozen turfs,” he said. “We are trying to improve our hockey infrastructure and planning the journey to success, keeping in mind our resources,” he added.

The PHF president said that when he took charge of the federation, he started many new departmental teams and revived the closed departmental teams. “We created employment opportunities which started to solve the financial problems of our hockey players to a great extent but later this process could not go ahead. Now we are once again trying to solve the financial problems of our hockey players with the support of the government,” he said.