PSB officials grilled over PHF de-notification

ISLAMABAD: The officials in the sports hierarchy, including the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC), have asked the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) to state under which clause the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has been de-notified.

'The News' has learnt from well-placed sources that the Ministry of IPC summoned some of the PSB officials the other day to ascertain whether there is any clause in the PSB or PHF constitution that allows the Board to de-notify a federation because of delay in elections or for any other reason. “Some of the PSB officials were summoned at the Ministry Office Friday to share the clause under which the PHF has been de-notified. These officials were even asked to share any old constitution clause under which a federation could be de-notified,” a source in the PSB said.

The official told 'The News' that efforts to locate the clause that gives PSB the authority to de-notify a federation went fruitless.

“The most that PSB can do is to disaffiliate a federation as they did in the weightlifting federation case. Even that step is illegal because no show-cause notice was served on the weightlifting federation before it was disaffiliated. The PHF case has been totally mishandled as there is no provision that could allow the PSB to de-notify PHF. They could have sent a reminder to the federation to hold its election within a specific period of time. Such a step was never taken, resulting in total confusion,” said the official.

It has been learnt that one of the leading Ministry officials expressed his anger over the step taken by the PSB.

“You cannot rule out some remedial measures from the PSB on the de-notification of the PHF in near future,” the source said.

Director General PSB Asif Zaman, who is in Turkey, could not be reached for comments.

The letter of de-notification issued on June 7 by the PSB said that there had been no elections of the federation since May 15, 2018.

“The PHF officials have been denotified/dismissed as they failed to hold elections in time. Their last elections were held on May 15, 2018. All leading office bearers' tenure expires the same day four years later. They should have held the election well within time which was not done accordingly,” the letter said.

The elections that were held in 2018 saw Brig (rtd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar assuming office for the second consecutive term as the President of PHF. Shahbaz Ahmad was also elected as secretary of PHF for the second time as a secretary while Mohammad Ikhlaq was elected as the PHF treasure. Asif Bajwa replaced Shahbaz as the secretary in 2019.

“Bajwa’s tenure as secretary also expired along with other office bearers,” the PSB letter said.

It is worth mentioning here that the Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) elections were due in October 2021 yet it is being looked after well by the government even nine months after the expiry of the tenures. The AFP President is a member of the PSB Board and an important part of the decision-making process.

Ju-Jitsu Federation elections were due in January 2022 and Pakistan Golf Federation (PGF) was supposed to conduct election in December 2021. Yet, they have received no such de-notification letters from the PSB.