Asif Bajwa said that Pakistan and India would sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in May for a bilateral hockey series, after which, both hockey boards would finalise the arrangements in this regard. Besides the hockey boards of the two countries, their national Olympic committees and sports ministries also are in the favour of reviving bilateral hockey series.
“Pakistan would play a hockey series against India this year, for sure, but one can’t tell now whether it would be played in Pakistan or at a neutral venue”, Bajwa said.
Pakistan would take part in the Indoor Hockey Asia Cup for the first time and the Federation is considering holding national-level indoor tournament for preparation of the tournament, he stated.
Bajwa further said that the PHF would bid for hosting the 2nd Asian Champions Trophy so as to invite international hockey teams to play in Pakistan.
Asif Bajwa told that the reasons behind downfall of the national game are deep-rooted and this is the need of the hour that the real culprits behind the downfall are unearthed.
“Nobody worked for the betterment of hockey in Pakistan in the past, school hockey breathed its last, and club hockey was also lagging far behind; however, the current PHF regime is working with dedication to bring back the days of glory back to Pakistan and I hope the results would be visible in the next three to four years”, Bajwa mentioned.
Refuting the media speculations about transfer of funds worth Rs500 million in the PHF, the PHF Secretary said, “No, there is no truth in the news regarding transfer of that bigger quantum. The PHF received only Rs220 million funds and now it has Rs60 million in its account”. He added, “Last year, the PHF’s budget was Rs80 million, while it is now to the tune of Rs90 million. One can’t understand that despite having such a huge budget, there were no hockey activities in or out of the country before. Then in the past, coaches, players and associated staff were not paid salaries and instead they were involved in the PHF matters on an honorary basis, but we came here with a mission and provided them with the salaries. Now the budget of the Federation is very much the same, but you can see a lot more domestic tournaments being played”.
We offered the players central contracts, and are spending millions of rupees on restructuring the national academies, he added.
Bajwa went on to say that apart from the performance in the World Cup, the general performance of the Men in Green was quite satisfactory as it played finals of three out of four tournaments it played, while the junior team won three out of four tournaments it took part in.
“For the Youth Olympic, we are left with no option but to prepare a whole new team because 11 players have passed the age limit”, he said.
Bajwa made it clear that the PHF stopped departments from having players of over 30 years age because it wanted to block the way of those players who were not only playing in the national fold but were also blocking the way for the junior players.
While commenting on the breaches of code of conduct in the recently concluded 57th NBP National Hockey Championship, Asif Bajwa said that such incidents took place in the past also where players like Hanif Khan, Naveed Alam and Kalimullah were involved in untoward incidents and no action was taken whatsoever against anybody. However, this time around, the PHF made sure the culprits are dealt with as per the Federation’s rules and no compromise on discipline would be made in future as well, Bajwa made it clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment