Pakistan has been allocated one of the Olympic hockey qualifiers by the International Hockey Federation (FIH). The FIH hockey Olympic qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be held in Spain, China and Pakistan in January 2024.

As always, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is blowing this ‘achievement’ out of all proportion. The PHF Secretary, Haider Hussain, through an official press release informs the nation: “This event will prove to be the first drop of rain in the return of the glory days of hockey in Pakistan.”

There will be 12 teams, both men and women, participating in the 2024 Olympics. They will include the five continental champions of 2023 — from the Asian Games, the Euro Hockey Championship, the Pan American Games, the Oceania Cup and the African Hockey Road to Paris. Hosts France will be automatic qualifiers.

For the remaining six berths, eight teams will compete at each of the two qualifiers for men, to be held in Lahore, Pakistan and Valencia, Spain. The top three from Lahore and the top three from Valencia will complete the line-up for the Paris 2024 Olympics. It will be an uphill task for 16th-ranked Pakistan to qualify.

The International Hockey Federation has allotted one of the Olympic Qualifiers to Pakistan. Though it is good for reviving some hockey activity in the country, is it really going to return us to the glory days of hockey in Pakistan?

One wonders how the hosting of an Olympic qualifier could be a harbinger of the return of the glory days of hockey in Pakistan. The glory days of Pakistan hockey were when the country held all the titles, including the Olympics and World Cup. Present-day Pakistan has even failed to qualify for the last two Olympics and the last World Cup.

The official press release also said: “The Secretary PHF desires hockey fans to fill Lahore’s National Hockey Stadium, as seen during the 1990 World Cup at the same venue.” It is ridiculous to compare Pakistan hockey in 2023 to that of 1990. In those days, the popularity of hockey in the country was comparable to that of cricket.

Almost all the members of the national team were household names. The general public adored not only the Pakistani players, but also the stars of other top nations, such as Stefan Blocher of Germany, Floris Jan Bovelander of Holland and Mohammad Shahid of India, to name just a few. Such was the following of hockey in this country. Today, not even one percent of Pakistan’s population can name a single player of its national hockey team.

In this scenario, it is absurd to expect people to fill the world’s biggest hockey stadium, with a capacity of more than 50,000. Yes, a few thousand could be brought over by taking busloads of school/college children, as the PHF has been doing for the final matches of the domestic events.

The federation has also been blowing its own trumpet on Pakistan winning the silver medal at the Junior Asia Cup 2023, and telling everyone that Pakistan has qualified for the Junior World Cup after a long time by finishing second. The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has always qualified for the Junior World Cup, barring one in 2001.

Pakistan didn’t participate in the 2016 Junior World Cup in the Indian city of Lucknow despite having qualified. The team could not travel to India and backed out at the last minute as the PHF couldn’t arrange for visas of the squad in time — one of the many colossal administrative blunders of the Brig (retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar-led PHF.

Such fabricated claims from this federation are nothing new. At the most recent edition of the annual Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in November 2022, Pakistan finished third. The PHF’s disinformation cell told the nation that this “turnaround” is ‘the first drop of rain’ then too.

The 2022 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup had four Asian and two African teams participating, with not a single side from Europe, hockey’s power base. It was the weakest ever field in the long history of this tournament. This was because the world’s top nine teams were engaged in the International Hockey Federation’s flagship event, the FIH Pro League. The highest-ranked team was the host Malaysia, which is ranked 10th in the world. Yet, the PHF was bent on fooling the nation.

There has been a gradual decline in Pakistan hockey since the turn of the millennium, with Pakistan’s world ranking going steadily down. But the downfall has been the worst during the tenure of the incumbent PHF president, Brig Khokhar, who assumed the charge in 2015.

The team’s world ranking has fallen to as low as 18. For the last two years it has been languishing between 16 to18. For the record, Pakistan was ranked 10th when Khokhar took over in 2015.

Pakistan also failed to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, held in 2021 because of the Covid pandemic. For the 2018 World Cup, the PHF bragged about its great success as Pakistan managed to qualify after failing to do so for the previous edition in 2014. But Pakistan’s qualification for the 2018 World Cup was entirely down to the FIH’s decision to increase the number of participating teams from 12 to 16.

At the 2018 World Cup, Pakistan finished 12th, thus equalling its worst-ever finish. Pakistan scored just two goals, their lowest World Cup tally.

Recently, Pakistan also failed to qualify for the 2023 World Cup. This was the first time that Pakistan couldn’t get a place in the 16-team global event. At the 2021 Junior World Cup, Pakistan finished 11th, its worst-ever position in this event. At the 2018 Asian Games, Pakistan ended up fourth, equalling its worst-ever position at the Asian Games.

At the 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games, Pakistan finished seventh each time, its worst-ever position in this event. Pakistan also failed to qualify for the Youth Olympics for the first time, after finishing a miserable sixth at the qualifiers in 2018.

Pakistan experienced its worst-ever defeat in international hockey, 1-9, to Australia in November 2017. Pakistan also saw its worst-ever defeat against India, 1-7, in 2017 in the Hockey World League in London, followed by another humiliation against the same team, going down 1-6 in the same event, a few days later.

As the famous saying attributed to US president Abraham Lincoln goes, “You can fool all people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all people all of the time.”

The writer is a freelance sports journalist based in Lahore. He tweets @IjazChaudhry1 and can be reached a Ijaz62@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 13th, 2023