Lahore: A 25-member Pakistan hockey squad, 18 players, and 7 officials left for Australia in the wee hours of Wednesday to participate in the Four-Nation Tournament starting in Hobart on May 2.
The national team, led by Mohammad Imran, departed with only 50 percent of their daily allowance for the last month. The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) handed over a cheque for the remaining amount to head coach Shahnaz Sheikh. “The cheque will be cleared on our return from Australia,” Shahnaz told reporters before the team’s departure, adding that the players and officials were determined to give their best despite the financial crisis.
The head coach said that the current hockey team were facing the same financial crunch that affected the players in 1960s when they hardly had any money to buy the basic necessities of life, but their supreme performance earned them timeless glory. “This team have performed well in the past two tournaments (Champions Trophy and Asian Games), and they are ready to repeat that performance and will surely be rewarded for their hard work and dedication,” Shahnaz maintained. He also asked the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination to clear the outstanding dues of the team to lessen the mental pressure on the players, adding that the PHF had signed a four-year contract with Malik Sports, who will be providing two kits for matches and two for practice sessions till 2018. Skipper Imran urged the players to continue the hard work they have done during the training camp in order to prepare for the World Hockey League in June, which would serve as qualifiers for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Cash-strapped PHF enters kits deal with Sialkot company: A Sialkot-based kit manufacturing company has signed a four-year contract with the cash-starved PHF. Despite being beset by financial problems, the PHF sent players to Australia to participate in the Four-Nation Tournament starting on May 2. PHF Secretary General Rana Mujahid Ali and Malik Zulfiqar of Malik Sports signed the contract just a few hours before the team departed for Australia via Karachi.
Head coach Shahnaz was also in attendance. Malik Zulfiqar, also a former president of the Sialkot Cricket Association, said his firm signed the agreement at a time when the PHF really needed public sector support. In the first phase, his firm will provide kits of international standard to the country’s hockey governing body, and the PHF will also receive funds after some time.
Talking about financial support to the PHF, Zulfiqar, who while claiming that the kits provided to the PHF matched up to the international brands, said every member of Pakistan team would get four kits in different colours, two for matches and as many for practice sessions. It may be mentioned here that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is a patron of the PHF, received reports from different quarters that the PHF in the past had misused the funds it got from the federal government, due to which the federal government wants to conduct an audit of the PHF before releasing funds. However, the federal government has yet to appoint any auditor, with the hockey federation having no funds to make do with its routine tasks. It is pertinent to mention that had Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif not released a grant of Rs100 million during this period, the PHF would have faced more financial crisis.
