Hockey remained in the news for all the wrong reasons last week. Pakistan is without any world or Asian title which shows the deterioration of the national sport while internal politics in the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is adding fuel to the fire.

The controversy started when PHF Director Domestic and Development Olympian Naveed Alam raised a voice against the poor display of Pakistan in the recently concluded Asian Games in Indonesia. Pakistan finished fourth to come back without any medal. As per rule, no official of the PHF can speak against the institution before the media. That’s why the PHF served Naveed with a notice, which he did not bother to reply to, claiming that as an Olympian he had the right to speak on both minus and plus points of the national team.

Instead of giving a reply to the notice, he held another media talk, raising serious allegations of corruption and nepotism against PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed Senior who had been his captain when they were players. The next day, Naveed received the order of his suspension and vacation of the office. Naveed again refused to follow the order and continued to sit in the PHF office without any work.

As both PHF president retired Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar and secretary Shahbaz are working in Islamabad, so Naveed is the only hockey personality working in the PHF headquarters in Lahore. The PHF would certainly succeed to get the office vacated from Naveed. But after it, no hockey Olympian would be holding office at the PHF headquarters, which is a dilemma. The PHF has also issued a warning to all its critics, especially those on the social media, of legal action if they continued maligning the national game.

Amid this controversy, another bad news for hockey came in the form of postponement of six-nation hockey tournament being held in Lahore from Sept 26 because half of the participating teams have pulled out of it.

It was a tournament meant for junior teams and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Oman, Afghanistan and Qatar had confirmed the participation. But later on, all of them one by one withdrew for one reason or the other. The poor financial position of the PHF was also one of the reasons that the federation did not bother to convince these countries to come and play. However, it has requested the Asian Hockey Federation to extend the date to the month of November this year. No reply has been received from the federation yet. It was the first occasion after 14 years that an international hockey event was going to be held in Lahore.

The cricket crazy fans will enjoy the Asia Cup which has been inaugurated in the UAE on Saturday with the opening match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. India and Pakistan will lock horns on Sept 19. If both India and Pakistan play the final, it would mean the traditional rival would see each other twice in this regional tournament. So, it will be great news for the fans of the game to see two teams playing against each other after almost 15 months. Last time, they played the final of the ICC Champions Trophy in London in June, 2017 with Pakistan winning by a wide margin of 180 runs. Interestingly, England is the founder of the game of cricket which failed to flourish in Europe but attracted the South Asian countries a lot. Out of total 12 Test playing countries, five nations, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, are in this region. No other continent has such a good number of Test playing countries.

The Pakistan team after attending one-week long training camp at the Gaddafi Stadium reached the UAE to face Hong Kong in the first match. Though entertaining cricket is in the offing, the sacred month of Muharram has also started and the clash of India-Pakistan is due to be played on 8th of the Islamic calendar month. The district government has rejected all the plans to set big TV screens for the public to see the matches in parks due to Ashura.

The Pakistan football team got some achievements as it qualified for the semi-final of the South Asian Football Cup in Bangladesh after 14 years. But in the pre-final, its arch-rival India defeated her to qualify for the final. Pakistan earned victories against Bhutan and Nepal and lost one match to Bangladesh to play the semi-final. In final, India faced a stunning defeat at the hands of tiny Maldives. However, the overall performance of Pakistan was satisfactory because it had entered in any international event after three-year suspension by the FIFA.

Despite the installation of the floodlights at the LCCA ground some three months back, they are not operational due to non-availability of generators. It is unfortunate that both the Sports Board Punjab and the LCCA are in no hurry to complete this small project for which the funds were released some three years back. The red tape created hurdles to the project as the cost of the project had increased to around Rs70m while initially it was just Rs35m.

According to the LCCA officials, negotiations were under way with the Sports Board Punjab for completion of the project.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2018