KARACHI, 1 June 2007 — Former Olympian Hassan Sardar believes Pakistan hockey is currently in the hands of a group of men with little or no knowledge of the game.
In an interview to Arab News, Hassan feared the worst for Pakistan hockey and appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to sack Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Chief Zafarullah Khan Jamali to save the national game from its current state of despair.
“I pray for our hockey team more than ever because it is in the hands of people who really don’t have the credentials to run it in a professional manner,” Hassan said.
“They all belong to the old school of thought and I don’t think they know much about today’s hockey,” added the star striker of the 1980s.
Jamali, a former prime minister, is currently the PHF president. Since taking over as the PHF chief last year, Jamali has handpicked officials to run the game and almost all of them are either over 60 or approaching that age.
The PHF secretary, Khalid Mehmood, is a former Olympian who played out most of his professional career in the 1960s. National chief selector, Khawaja Zakauddin, was a part of the Pakistan team that won the Olympic title in Rome almost half a century ago. The youngest member of the national hockey top brass is perhaps Pakistan’s head coach, Islahuddin Siddiqui, a star of the seventies.
“The game has changed drastically in the last 15 to 20 years but they are still running it the way it was done 30 or 40 years ago. It is never going to work,” said Hassan, who has served as a national selector in the past.
Pakistan has been unable to win a major international title since their 1994 World Cup triumph but their performance has been particularly bad in the past six months.
The Greenshirts flopped in last December’s Asian Games in Doha, finishing a disappointing third in the event following a shock defeat against underdogs China in the semifinals.
Their performance took a further dip in this month’s Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh, Malaysia where defeats against Korea and Argentina condemned them to a sixth-place finish — their worst finishing in the history of the contest. “Unless we take concrete measures, our performance graph would continue to dip,” said Hassan.
In a recent statement, coach Islahuddin made it clear that Pakistan would need another five years to get back on the winning track but Hassan disagrees.
“The way they are kicking out experienced and valuable players like Shakeel Abbasi, I don’t think they will reach anywhere even in the next five years.”
Abbasi, a former vice-captain and a world-class striker, was dropped from the national team for the Azlan Shah Cup on the basis of poor form and fitness.
Hassan criticized the move saying that Pakistan cannot afford to leave behind experienced players like Abbasi. “For the past 25 or 30 years, we have been mistreating our top players. This has to stop now because we simply don’t have enough capable replacements.”
He said that instead of dropping good players, the officials should try to help them regain their form. “It is easy to kick out a player but much more difficult to help him regain his form and fitness. But it is the duty of the officials to take the second option.”
Hassan advised Islahuddin to coach the national junior team if he needed five years to prepare it for major international events like the Olympics or the World Cup.
“For the national senior team, we need a coach who can take quick measures to improve our team’s performance. Coaches who have long-term plans should train the juniors because they are ones who would mostly be playing for Pakistan five years from now.”
Hassan suggested that a big short-term measure Pakistan can take to improve their performance is to recall experienced players like penalty corner specialist Sohail Abbas and experienced midfielder Muhammad Saqlain.
“I’m sure that if we form a combination of experience and youth and then train the team properly, Pakistan can do much better at the international level.”
PHF officials have blacklisted several senior players including Sohail, Saqlain, Waseem Ahmed, Ghazanfar Ali and Dilawar Hussain after they missed a national training camp late last year to play professional hockey abroad.
