ISLAMABAD-Senate Standing Committee on Inter Provincial Coordination (IPC) met under the chair of Convener Senator Waleed Iqbal on Tuesday.
Senator Salahuddin Tirmazi, Pakistan Hockey Federation Secretary Olympian Shahbaz Senior, Treasurer Akhlaq Usmani, IPC Secretary Akbar Durrnai, Acting Director General Pakistan Sports Board Arif Ibrahim, Olympians Khawaja Juniad, Khalid Basheer, Manzoor Junior and Director PSB Muhamamd Azam Dar was also present on the occasion.
Former Olympians levelled serious allegations against Pakistan Hockey Federation and termed they lack direction and doesn’t have any vision to run hockey affairs in the country. They were of the view that present management neither conducted any grassroots level programmes nor paid any focus on junior development programmes.
But strangely all the past Olympians failed to prove a single allegation in front of the house and were given shut up call by the chair, Waleed Iqbal, who said they wanted accountability of only four years of Brig Khalid Sajjad Khohkar and Olympian Shahbaz Senior while what about the past federations and who was going to answer about the past grave issues.
Waleed said: “Hockey is our national game and we all have to join hands to ensure Pakistan hockey back on right track. Besides government, it is responsibility of former greats to join hands and bring proposals for the betterment of hockey rather than levelling allegations against each other.”
He was of the view that federation under present circumstances was doing good job. “Our players are giving good results, but we have to ensure much better and consistent results must come thick and fast.”
Waleed said the government had to provide sufficient amount of funds to the federation so they could run day-to-day affairs and also ensure players and officials involved with the sports must run their kitchens. Without funds and financial support, no sports could flourish, he said and added: “We will invite suggestions from all the stake holders to improve the standard of hockey and ensure Pakistan hockey team could scale down same old glory days heights.”
While presenting his views Olympian Shahbaz Senior, who is also the secretary of Pakistan Hockey Federation informed the house that federation is working on number of grassroots level programmes and conducted National Junior Championship, Development Squads Championship in Gojra while the federation has also decided to include development squads in the 65th Noor Khan Hockey Championship, which would be held after Eid.
“We have also decided to pit development squad against the visiting Uzbekistan National Hockey team.”
He said all the allegations levelled against federation are childish and those who were very much part of the federation and were enjoying perks and privileges in different roles and when they failed to deliver and were removed, they started to create lot of fuss.
“We have unearthed fresh talent. In the past, we had hardly handful of players in entire country but now we have enhanced fresh pool of players and we have not only senior but junior and development squads teams as well. We had manage to collect funds through personal resources and invested that amount on Pakistan hockey team’s tours abroad and also make sure that national team not to miss a single major tournament. We could bring revolutionary changes and can ensure top class results, if sufficient amount of funds are provided to the federation. We are running from post to pillar and time and requested IPC Minister to spare some time for the sake of the hockey but so far no positive response was witnessed. We had pinned great hopes in PM Imran Khan, who is a great sportsman and a world cup winner himself, that he will spare some time and give us chance to reveal all the details.”
Khalid Basheer also levelled serious financial allegations against the federation. When Waleed asked Khalid to present the proof to the chair, the Olympian failed to bring any proof. In his concluding remarks Waleed said: “It would be highly injustice to held only present federation responsible for the hockey downfall. The past federations were inducted on political basis, which were main reason behind the debacle of hockey. We will soon present our recommendations to government for the betterment of hockey.”