LAHORE The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has appointed Punjab Sports Department secretary Rao Iftikhar Ahmad as chief election commissioner to hold the elections at district levels from Nov 21 to Dec 4, after the scrutiny of all bogus clubs.
Addressing a media conference here on Thursday, PHF president Qasim Zia said that all the process of the scrutiny and elections would be based on merit and he would supervise it.
PHF secretary Asif Bajwa and chief election commissioner Rao Iftikhar also addressed the gathering.
The PHF president, meanwhile, has appointed a politician MPA Mohammad Akhlaq as chairman scrutiny committee for Punjab while in the other provinces and regions, all Olympians would look after the affairs of the scrutiny.
Olympian Mohammad Akhlaq is the chairman of the scrutiny committee NWFP, Olympian Musadaq Hussain for Balochistan, Olympian Khalid Bashir (Islamabad) and Olympian Rahim Khan (Gilgit and Baltistan).
The president said the chairmen of the provinces were allowed to pick up their like-minded person in the scrutiny committees.
After completing the first phase, provincial associations' elections will be held on Dec 5 and elections of PHF will be held in the first week of January.
He said the main purpose of the scrutiny was to eliminate the bogus clubs. He said a district having five clubs had the right to cast votes in the provincial elections.
To a question, he said the PHF had decided to only accept those clubs, which would also have under-16 teams. He admitted that overage players were still playing in the inter-district club championship.
'We don't need overage players and that is why an under-16 team will be a must for any club to remain on the list,' he said.
To a question, the PHF president said that last time it was essential that a club must have only participated in district inter-club championship but from now onward the condition of having an under-16 team would give new life to club hockey, which was dying.
To a question, the president admitted that various clubs existed on paper and they could field a team in the inter-district championship by gathering the players from somewhere, but same would not be easy to field any team of under-16.
However, he did not admit that an elected representative of the club should be included in the PHF Executive Board to convey the problems they were facing at the grass root level.
'We all are representing any club and we know about the basic problems,' he said. But when asked then why club hockey was dying day-by-day, he had no reply.
Meanwhile, to a question, the chief election commissioner Rao Iftikhar admitted that he was much busy as sports secretary but would spare time for this noble cause.
Meanwhile, Punjab has announced the committee members for the scrutiny of clubs in Punjab.
Bahawalpur Region Olympian Muhammad Shafqat and Muhammad Shafiq Bhatti.
D. G Khan Region Olympian Danish Kaleem, International Ajmal Khan and Mujahid Afzal.
Multan Region Olympian Khalid Bashir, International Khawar Javed and Muhammad Rasheed.
Faisalabad Region Olympian Saleem Sherwani, Olympian Ishtiaq Ahmad, International Qasim Khan and Shahzad Chishti.
Sahiwal Region Olympian Muhammad Akhlaq, Khalid Rasool and International Shahid Hussain.
Sargodha Region Gulraiz Sheikh and Sajjad Yazdani.
Gujranwala Region Olympian Muhammad Sarwar and Rana Khalid Iqbal.
Sialkot Region Olympian Anjum Saeed, Olympian Rizwan Munir Bhutta and Parvez Kiani.
Lahore Region Olympian Anwar Ali Shah, International Anwar Pal Mando, Qasim Khan and Olympian Gulrez Akhtar.
Rawalpindi Region Olympian Muhammad Shahbaz Junior, Olympian Irfan Mehmood and International Shahzad Chishti.
Islamabad Region Olympian Muhammad Akhlaq.
The dates of the scrutiny and elections will be announced later.
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