LAHORE: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president retired Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar on Monday left for Lausanne, Switzer­land to appear before the FIH disciplinary committee on the FIH Pro League which Paki­stan failed to participate in earlier this year.

Brig Khokhar will explain his position on Pakistan’s failure to send its national team to Argentina to feature in the FIH Pro league. The development resulted in breach of the FIH rules.

Pakistan were scheduled to travel to Argentina in January this year to face the host in the first leg of the league, which was introduced for the first time by the FIH in place of the Champions Trophy. From Argentina, Pakistan had to go to Australia and New Zealand too.

For the entire tour, the PHF needed funds to the tune of Rs30 million which the cash-stripped federation failed to generate. The federal government, meanwhile, remained reluctant to issue any special grant to the federation for the said trip. Just a week before the squad was to leave for Argentina, the PHF announced its decision of withdrawing the team from the event. The FIH in its first response, decided to keep Pakistan out of the league which is also a qualifier for next year’s Tokyo Olympics. Later, the FIH also excluded Pakistan from the regular Olympic qualifying round for the Tokyo 2020. The game’s world governing referred Pakistan’s case to its disciplinary committee for further action.

The disciplinary committee will be holding the hearing of the matter on Tuesday. Though PHF’s case looks very weak as president Khokhar made the commitment some two years ago about Pakistan’s participation in the league. However, the PHF chief failed to make proper planning to generate the required funds for the same.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2019