LAHORE: The tussle between national cricket and hockey bodies over a loan, granted by the former to the latter in 2001, took a new turn on Monday when Pakistan Hockey Federation secretary declared that his organisation had no intention to return the loan worth Rs10 million to the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Talking to Dawn, PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed Senior, said the national hockey federation had no intention to pay back the said loan to the PCB, despite getting recently, the grant-in-aid from the government of Pakistan worth Rs200 million.

“As the PCB is the country’s richest sport body it should follow the cricket boards of India and Bangladesh, which are financially supporting other sports [in their country],” said Shahbaz.

It was the national duty of the PCB to patronise the (financially) deprived sports bodies of the country because it itself had sufficient funds, the PHF secretary emphasised.

On the other hand, the PCB has stated that its constitution contains no provision to convert a loan into grant-in-aid. Therefore, the PHF has to return the loan to the national cricket governing body.

Interestingly, in 2001, then PCB chairman retired Lt. Gen Tauqir Zia helped out the PHF which at that time was being run by Gen Aziz Khan, with a loan of Rs10 million despite the fact that there is no provision in the PCB constitution for spending money on any sports activity other than cricket.

Though the PCB has referred the case of the said loan to the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC), the fresh stance taken up by the PHF secretary could cause problems in resolving the matter in near future.

Published in Dawn November 22nd, 2016