Addressing a hurriedly called press conference after meeting renowned Olympians at his office here on Monday, the PHF president said “The PHF will not accept the resignation of the players. The new selection committee will consider every player for selection after ensuring their form and fitness.”
The entire national team had tendered its resignation after finishing at the 12th spot in the World Cup held in New Delhi.
Performance of senior players like Sohail Abbas, Wasim Ahmad and Rehan Butt remained below par at the event.
The PHF president said unfortunately the circumstances did not allow the players to play enough matches against strong teams of Europe and that was a major handicap in the World Cup.
“We could play only a short series against England and two matches against Holland, the two toughest teams of Europe, before playing the World Cup, but it was not enough,” he said.
“The PHF will now try utmost to arrange maximum number of matches against European teams and Australia to give proper chance to the players to improve their skill,” he said.
On one hand no country is ready to play in Pakistan due to prevailing security situation and on the other the European teams seem reluctant to invite Asian countries because of the declining standard of the game in the continent.
Qasim said he was consulting former Olympians to put the game back on the right track.
He added that he would like to welcome all greats including Islahuddin, Shahnaz Sheikh, Samiullah and others to come forward and join hands for the betterment of the game in the country.
When reminded that senior Olympians had already given their suggestion to remove Asif Bajwa as secretary, the PHF president said the secretary could only be removed through a no-confidence move by the Congress since it was an elected seat.
However, Qasim said giving dual job to Asif Bajwa (PHF secretary and manager of the team) did not deliver and that experience would not be repeated in future.
“No official will be dealing with two jobs in the PHF,” he said.
Qasim reminded the reporters that two members of the previous Executive Board -- Islah and Shahbaz Senior -- had not opposed the proposal of giving the role of manager to Asif Bajwa when it was tabled. In fact, he said, Shahbaz had supported it, but now he was opposing it.
He said he was in contact with Islah and others and wanted to have their input.
He said he did not receive any report from Shahnaz Sheikh so far on the World Cup matches.
He said the new selection committee and the team management would be announced soon after establishing the Executive Board.
He said though it had been decided in principle to hire a foreign coach for the team, the new Executive Board would discuss this matter in detail to take a final decision.
He said his target was still the 2010 Asian Games and the PHF had the abilities to raise a strong team for that event.
Prominent who met Qasim were Asad Malik, Manzoor Junior and Khawaja Junaid.
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