Reacting on umpires' decisions during the match against HBL, Mirza Waheed Baig said PHF in connivance with tournament director Iftikhar Syed and all the technical officials wants to see Wapda lose with an objective to favour National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).
“I can say with full confidence that PHF, tournament director, field jury and umpires are hand in glove. PHF wants to see NBP win this championship at all cost. Umpires deliberately gave biased decisions against us during the match against HBL. I have submitted an official protest against the umpiring,” Waheed told Dawn.com after the match at Hockey Club of Pakistan.
In a letter to the tournament director, Waheed wrote that his side played the last 25 minutes of the match with 10 players after Sajjad Anwar was sent off.
“I can give several evidences against biased umpiring. First Sajjad was sent off for 25 minutes, Imran for 20 minutes, while the game was stopped umpires never bothered to give time out. Our four players, Sajjad, Waqas Sharif, Imran and Mohammad Adeel were sent to the bench. The rule is if four players are out at the same time because of cards then the team should be asked to leave the field,” said Waheed.
The Wapda official admitted that while the umpires had been constantly biased, his players naturally became rash and reacted strongly.
“If anybody lands a blow on my face, then what I am supposed to do. But even after this third-rate umpiring against top-class players, I asked Sohail Abbas, Waseem Ahmad, Rehan Butt and Mudassar Ali who are Olympians to apologise to the umpires and they tendered apologies and thanked the umpires after the match. Actually, when Iftikhar Syed said that we should play or our team would be scratched from the tournament, we decided not to play,” said the coach.
Waheed alleged that since Rana Mujahid was associate secretary of PHF and was now acting as NBP coach, PHF wanted the bankers to win the championship.
“It is very clear. There is a mafia of PIA and NBP who are the favourites of PHF. Rana Mujahid belongs to NBP and PHF wants to favour him by all these manipulations against us. Rana Mujahid has become a party as he held a press conference about the championship although he cannot do that because he is now acting as NBP coach,” claimed Waheed.
According to Waheed, the tournament director had been playing a key role in manipulating technical things at the behest of PHF.
“He has no role to play except picking up and collecting banana peels from all over the venue. He does everything except act as tournament director. One can hardly see him around the pitch during the matches,” said the coach.
On the other hand, umpires Mubarak Ali and Takreem Iftikhar in a complaint letter to the tournament director, stated that they and their colleagues had decided against officiating future matches against Wapda, alleging that Waheed and his players abused and threatened to kill them.
“Waheed and his players Sajjad Anwar and Mohammad Adeel abused us and even threatened to kill us. A Wapda player even threw a number card on field jury members. We and other umpires have decided that we will not supervise matches against Wapda in future. Since they are involved in misconduct by walking out in protest, we appeal that strict action should be taken against the official and players involved,” Mubarak and Iftikhar wrote to the tournament director.
Technical officer and judges who supervised the Wapda-HBL match have also stated in a complaint to the tournament director that they would not act as field jury in a match involving Wapda.
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