LAHORE: Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) director domestic and development Naveed Alam urged the body’s president Brig. (retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar to ‘find out the real culprits’ behind the national game’s poor running.

The former Olympian complained the federation has failed to take the steps to control the damage Pakistan hockey has gone through in the recent past.

“Though I am a part of the PHF, I am disappointed that the hockey has earned bad name due to different crisis which came in the last three years but no inquiry was initiated to control the damage by any one,” Naveed told Dawn.

Naveed said the team which Khokhar picked to run the federation has failed the president and and that he should have taken steps earlier to avoid making the situation more critical.

“The PHF faced the allegations of financial irregularities, the national and junior teams have failed to click at the international level in last three years but no action was taken against any one,” Naveed said.

“The PHF president should step forward to grill his secretary Shahbaz Ahmad Sr for all those failures.”

“And if the PHF president will waste more time then the IPC should come forward to grill the real culprits of all the failures,” Naveed added.

He appealed to the Inter-provincial ministry (IPC) to hold a separate meeting with the PHF to analyse the real situation prevailing in the federation, which was quite alarming.

He said out of total 110 members of the PHF congress, 60 per cent had already submitted a requisition to call the meeting of the congress but no decision had been taken at yet.

Naveed criticised the PHF for not making good use of the Rs 800 million fund received by the federation in the last three years from different quarters.

“Not a single paisa was allocated for the educational program. Not a single paisa was given to any district for holding district club championship from that huge amount,” said Naveed

“All the funds were used on two teams — the Pakistan senior team and on the development dquad, which had no future.”

“While the Pakistan senior team has failed to click, the development squad, run by Kamran Ashraf, a close friend of PHF secretary Shahbaz, has also failed to produce any player because overage players are included in it,” he said.

“All the funds spent on the development squad, which is in millions of rupees, have been drained out just at the cost of obliging one friend Kamran Ashraf.”

He said on Tuesday, the Punjab Hockey Association called a meeting of its executive committee in Lahore but not a single member turned up to attend it and that showed how the provincial bodies of the PHF were running.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2018