The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) on Tuesday rubbished reports about an apparent fallout between seasoned player Rehan Butt and coach Michel van den Heuvel and manager Khawaja Junaid.

The reports suggested that the coach and manager criticized Butt for his below par performance and questioned the player’s “character.”

“PHF did not receive any such reports in which Rehan Butt has been criticized. These are only gossips, which lack the element of reality,” PHF secretary Asif Bajwa said.

It has been reported in certain sections of media that there were some incidents of misconduct during Pakistan’s European Tour, which the federation was trying to cover up.

“We condemn the dissemination of such baseless news,” Bajwa said.

The PHF chief selector Hanif Khan recently said that while announcing probables for the upcoming tour of Australia, his committee received the input of the coach and the manager but they themselves assessed the performance of players.

Therefore, the players missing out from the tour were dropped over a lack of performance alone, according to Khan.

He said Butt had been overlooked because he had not been performing up to the mark and younger players were coming up and filling his boots in the forward line.