LAHORE: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) expressed gratitude on Sunday to the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) over the latter’s willingness to bear all the expenditures of the national team’s tour of Belgium where the national team will play the Hockey World League Semifinals as qualifying round for 2016 Olympics.

“I personally thank the Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Minister Riaz Pirzada and secretary Mohammed Ijaz Chaudhary for swiftly addressing our financial problems and facilitating the PHF to undertake the tour,” said PHF secretary Rana Mujahid accompanied by captain Mohammad Imran, coach Danish Kaleem and a new sponsor of the federation during a media conference here just hours before the team left for Belgium.

Ten teams will be featuring in the Hockey World League round starting on June 20 with top five teams qualifying for the Olympics scheduled to be held in Rio de Janeiro.

The PHF secretary, however, admitted that the issue of awarding daily allowance to members of the national team is yet to be resolved and expressed hope that an amicable agreement will be reached upon.

The PHF had to pay Rs15,000 per day as daily allowance to each member of the squad but the PSB had the limit of $20 for each member which is in fact a huge discrepancy, maintained the PHF secretary who said as the PSB was helping the PHF, the federation’s finance rule had to be applied.

Talking about weak financial affairs of the PHF which it has been faced with for the last several months, the secretary said the hockey governing body had sought financial help from sponsor Happilac Paint.

“The paint manufacturing company has come forward to help the game of hockey and we have great respect for their passion,” he said.

Also, Khawaja Ammad Khalid Sikka of the said paint manufacturing company vowed that players would be awarded with handsome prizes if they qualified for the Olympics Games. He said that hockey was Pakistan’s national game and he had just come forward to help the game financially having come to know through media about PHF’s poor financial affairs.

He also appealed to other businessmen to come forward to save the national game.

When asked whether he had any complaint against anyone in connection with delay in provision of funds despite approval by the IPC ministry, Rana Mujahid said he had no complaints against anyone and hoped that hurdles would be removed soon.

The PHF secretary appealed to the corporate sector to invest a portion of their funds in sports to uplift its standard. “Unlike India and European countries corporate sector’s sponsorship in sports is meager in Pakistan,” he lamented, adding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was a sports-loving person who would definitely ensure solution to PHF’s financial problems.

On the other hand, captain Imran while claiming that Pakistan were in a position to qualify for the Olympics said that he and his players were not worried about the issue of their daily allowance.

“Our first priority is to get focused on the game and to qualify for the Olympics,” the captain said while expressing the hope that “the PHF will take care of players’ need as it has done so in the past.”

Answering a question, the captain dispelled the impression that the squad was not well prepared for the event.

“We toured Australia and later on we went to South Korea. Our aim in both the tours was not to win matches but to test different combination with youngsters kept on getting chances on various occasions,” Imran commented.

“So, we are well prepared for the upcoming assignment, for we have taken full advantage of the previous tours,” he further said.

Also, the captain said that Pakistan had to play practice matches against Ireland and some other countries after reaching Belgium.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2015

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