LAHORE, Oct 8: With the appointment of Dutch chief coach Roelant Oltmans, Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has abolished the post of manager.

PHF also allowed four senior players Ahmed Alam, Sohail Abbas, Shabbir Ahmad and Kashif Jawwad to miss this month’s 1st Afro- Asian Games to be held at Hyderabad, India.

Announcing the important decisions at a press conference  on Wednesday, PHF secretary Mussaratullah Khan, stated that the federation had appointed Oltmans as chief coach for 13 months, effective Dec 1, 2003 and ending on Dec 30, 2004.

However, he would also be available with the team during the Afro-Asian Games.

“ PHF was finding it difficult to hire a foreign coach and had contacted severl experts before hiring Oltmans on Tuesday”, he said.

The secretary explained that Oltmans had four specific assignments during his tenure, which includes Olympics qualifying round, Europeen tour in May and June, Olympic Games and the Champions Trophy.

“The coach has not been appointed only for the senior team, but rather his involvement will be in the overall structure of the federation, planing for five years, including coaching clinics, junior and senior teams” he clarified.

“For the Afro-Asian Games, the involvement of Oltmans is confined to only six days of the competition and not in the training camp”, he added.

He said that PHF has also hired a video analyst from Italy Collin Tino, whose name was recommended by Oltmans. Tino had been signed for the same period as Oltmans.

 With Oltmans and Tino, PHF now has three foreign experts in the team management as it already has a Dutch physio, Derk Verder.

The secretary said that the format of the team management would be changed after the Afro-Asian Games and there would be no managerial post.

Oltmans will be the head of the management, having one or two Pakistanis assistant coaches to be named later subject to  the availability of suitable persons, he said.

Musarrat, without mentioning the name of any particular person expressed strong resentment against a former manager.

“When PHF appoints a person as manager, it wants assistance from him and expects him to carry out that responsibility till a conclusive result. It does not expect him to create any unnecessary controversy, but after a bitter experience in  the past, PHF has decided to abolish this post.

Recently, Olympian Abdul Rashid Junior tendered his resignation citing domestic reasons behind it.

“Being the manager of Pakistan team or secretary PHF is a honour near and dear to me but it is not fair to say in the end that the post was forced on me and one was not ready for it”,  the secretary went on to say.

“No one will believe domestic reasons as the cause of Rashid’s resignation. I asked him several times but he always cited domestic reasons for his decision to quit”, the PHF official expalained.

He admitted that PHF named Hasan Sardar as new manager, in haste as there was no other choice available to replace Rashid and the former would be available only for Afro-Asian Games.

Musarrat disclosed that Pakistan was likely to play India in a four-nation tournament in Dubai.

The Dubai Hockey Association was laying a new astro turf for this tournament. India and Australia could be the other participants. The final confirmation was expected within a fortnight.

The PHF official said that some people were demanding his resignation but he added it would not solve the problem. “I am ready to quit if it will be for the benefit of hockey”.

Asked if PHF took the decision on appointing foreign coach after the failure of our own coaches he replied in the negative.

“The local coaches have done well and PHF now feels it is time to engage a foreigner and that is the reason the services of Dutch coach has been acquired”, he said.

Asked if it would not be better had PHF hired the foreign coach three years before and groomed local coaches under his supervision to avoid the spate of disastrous results, the PHF secretary did not agree that the results were all that “disastrous”.

Musarrat said that no doubt engaging a foreign coach was  a luxury, but now PHF was in a position to bear the expenses of a foreign coach.

He said that as the Afro-Asian Games was not included in PHF calender of activities, therefore we allowed four players to skip the event.