ISLAMABAD The Pakistan Hockey Federation is set to move towards institution building and lay its foundation on a professional structure of international standard, Dawn has learnt on authority.

The present structure of the PHF is based on a old setup with most of the operations being managed by the secretary of the federation.

The federation also recently fired its marketing team for failing to generate much needed sponsorship for the national squad.

'We will be hiring a strong professional team to look after the affairs of ever growing hockey federation' an official close to the development told Dawn.

'In the new organizational set-up the PHF will create a marketing department comprising highly skilled people, financial officials as well as a liaison personnel to coordinate with international federations and to manage visa issues of the team, in addition to a security team and a research and development department,' he said.

He said the financial needs of the PHF were rising with an ever increasing domestic hockey structure as the federation had been injected with around Rs120 million by the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, but still marketing and sponsorship were the key winning factors for any successful institution.

The official asserted 'We want to bring in more money for the betterment of the players by creating good opportunities for the multinational companies by increasing the number of domestic competitive hockey tournaments.'

Answering a question, the senior federation official said 'The new PHF structural reforms policy will be discussed with the senior management of the federation and it will be implemented after getting approval from the PHF Executive Committee.'

'After completing the upcoming European tour the federation will work out on the restructuring of the federation,' he said.

Pakistan are to appear in the World Cup qualifiers in Lille, France, scheduled to be held from Oct 31 to Nov 8.