KARACHI, Nov 21 In order to ensure that there is no dispute within the federation-affiliated hockey districts, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) will hold scrutiny of hockey clubs all over the country, said Pakistan Hockey Federation's (PHF) Director Administration Olympian Iftikhar Syed at a press briefing in the Hockey Club of Pakistan on Saturday.

“Scrutiny is the first step in PHF's election programme and the federation has formed committees all over Pakistan for the purpose. I have been named chairman for Sindh. Meanwhile, the other chairmen named are Olympian Chaudhary Mohammad Akhlaq (Punjab and NWFP), Olympian Syed Musaddiq Hussain (Balochistan), Olympian Khalid Bashir (Islamabad) and Olympian Rahim Khan (Fata, Gilgit and Baltistan),” he said.“The Scrutiny that commenced from Saturday is to be completed by Dec 3 as the district elections are to be held the following day on Dec 4,” he explained.

“The provincial elections will follow the district elections after which PHF's main elections will commence in January 2010,” he added.

“The elections and this scrutiny preceding it is also a way of reviewing PHF's work in the last 18 months,” he explained.

About the federation's work during this time, he said “This is the first time for the federation to have done what should have been initiated 25 years ago. They have set up 18 academies all over the country. The national team had fallen to a level where they had to play a qualifier in order to feature in the World Cup but they passed that test as well. Our under-18 team, too, has reached the U-18 Asia Cup final in Yangon, Myanmar.

“The districts serve as the base for any federation. If the clubs at the district level are doing their job, the federation benefits by getting more talented players,” he informed.

Explaining the scrutiny process, the former Olympian said that there were over 150 clubs in the 18 districts of Sindh alone.

“They are to give us details of at least 14 boys in order to prove themselves eligible. They are also required to have an under-16 team. Even if they manage to fulfill that requirement, we will put their teams through 15 to 20-minute sessions of play to see if their boys really are hockey players,” he said.

“And none of the club players can be above the age of 30,” he pointed out.

“In order to be given voting rights, a district must have at least five active clubs. Those which have less, will be accepted as districts but without any voting rights,” he said.

To a question as you how come the committees, comprising PHF employees, will carry out scrutiny of over 150 clubs in such a short span of time as according to the schedule given out by the PHF they are to check out the clubs in three districts each day and as many as five on Dec 2, Iftikhar Syed said “We will try to carry out the job to the best of our ability and you will be able to judge for yourself how well we fared in this challenge after seeing the results for yourself”.

When observed by another media person that this scrutiny will be on paper alone what with the districts having no constitutions of their own, he said “Well PHF Secretary Asif Bajwa has already asked the districts to submit their constitutions. Still this scrutiny must be carried out as it is a step in the positive direction.”