KARACHI - Favourite Lahore Lions which had superb run in the ten team multimillion rupee MCB Junior Super Hockey League will face the real test when they face Sialkot Eagles in the first semi final of the tournament here late Wednesday night at the HCP. In the second semi final Faisalabad Bulls will take on Islamabad Tigers later in the night. Lahore Lions which headed the points table with 22 points lost just one match at the league stage whereas Sialkot Eagles lost two matches to finish third on the table. Islamabad Tigers, which spoilt party for Multan Falcons when they shocked the team from Southern Punjab 3-1 in the quarterfinals, also expected to face tough time against Faisalabad Bulls in the second semi final. The final will be played on September 18. The winner of the tournament will be rich by Rs 200,000 which is the biggest ever prize money given to the winner in Pakistan in a hockey event of any category. As hockey is an amateur sport and giving cash prize money is said to breach the code of Olympic charter, there is a silent debate going on in hockey circles whether the PHF could offer cash awards to amateur teams and that too at junior level. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has never made an issue of sham amateurism because it was aware that in the sub continent each player who had played in Olympic was semi professional as he is employed in departments just to play hockey. But the FIH is sensitive if some one openly defied the sham amateur status. In recent years the FIH due to marketing forces has approved hockey league in Europe where the players are paid good amount to play for teams. A number of Pakistanis play in European league. The FIH all its life had remained cash strapped until the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which brought financial bonanza for the international federation across the board from the TV rights first time in Olympic history. The FIH also earn quite good revenue from companies involved in making artificial turf for approving various kinds of the artificial surfaces. The FIH has accepted the new reality of marketing of the sport and had relented considerably on its code of amateurism. In hockey world, there is no recorded incident when a country or a player was involved in breaching the Olympic amateurish code of conduct except once when Pakistan's former speedy left winger Samiullah in the days when IOC was sensitive to amateur status came close to overstepping the line some years ago. A senior hockey player vividly recalled the interesting event that occurred before 1984 which may have put former Olympian Samiullah in a tight corner for taking money for appearing in an advertisement .The speedy left winger had appeared in a lucrative advertisement just couple of days before the Champions Trophy in Karachi. The quarter front-paged advertisement showed Samiullah promoting footwear. When the advertisement appeared the entire FIH hierarchy including former FIH president Rene Frank was in town. On the advice of the PHF Samiullah withdrew from the advertisement, which was also withdrawn from the newspapers before any damage to Samiullah's amateur status was done.The PHF has spent Rs ten million to organise the junior league in which it had also experimented a number of new rules connected with duration of the timing of a game and penalty strokes. A number of companies accepted the PHF request to sponsor ten teams and the MCB was the main sponsor of the tournament .It failed to attract spectators though the PHF had announced lottery scheme for the spectators as it was held in Ramazan. As most of the matches were held late in the night there was hardly any crowed except the members of the playing teams and technical officials to watch the hockey matches.