NA body recommends Rs1b annual grant for PHF

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) has recommended one billion rupees per annum grant for the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) besides evolving other important measures to stage a revolution in the game.

Nawab Sher Waseer, chairman of the committee, in the presence of Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Dr Fehmida Mirza recommended that the PHF should be given or the government should directly spend Rs1 billion on the national game each year.

“We cannot compete with India when it comes to finances. If the Indian government supports its hockey federation with Rs3 billion each year, we should and must invest at least 33 percent of that amount on hockey’s promotion. I accept Asif Bajwa’s reasoning that without pumping finances into development of the game, we cannot stage a renaissance in hockey. I recommend one billion rupees annual grant for the PHF from the government because without it hockey cannot progress,” the IPC committee chairman said.

Waseer added that in the wake of no development work in sports, the country wasn’t making its mark at the international front.

“We must have to sit together to make collective efforts for sports promotion. Hockey is one of the sports that are showing no progress. The reasons are multiple. No financial support from the government, no system at school level and no jobs for budding hockey players are a few of the reasons for this downfall,” he said.

PHF secretary Asif Bajwa briefed the committee about the reasons for the downfall, saying that Pakistan had gone ten years back mainly because of the federation’s inability to send the national team to play the first FIH Pro League three years back.

“Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister approved Rs200 million but the interim government held back the amount resulting in Pakistan’s inability to travel to Argentina for the scheduled matches and it was the main reason behind decline in our ranking.

“At that time, we were ranked No 6 in the world while India at No 11. India then started playing international matches regularly. At present they are seen playing at least 40 international matches each year while Pakistan play just four. We need finances from the government to promote the game as unlike cricket we get nothing from the international body. On the contrary, we give affiliation fees to international bodies on a yearly basis.”

Bajwa said that one of the main reasons for the systematic downfall was the introduction of artificial hockey turf.

“Holland — a far smaller country than Pakistan — has around 1650 artificial hockey turfs for over 100,000 players. On the contrary, Pakistan has just ten turfs available. How can we compete against the best under prevailing circumstances,” Bajwa questioned.

The PHF secretary said history was evident that the game of hockey was totally dependent on governmental grants.

“If the government stops grants to the PHF, we are left with no alternative as the corporate sector never comes forward to support us. Once we separated the education ministry from sports, things got from bad to worse.”