Karachi, Sept. 9: Taking note of the lacklustre performance of the Pakistan hockey team in the recently concluded Beijing Olympics, the Sport Board here has set up a three-member inquiry committee to probe the debacle.
The head of the committee Rana Farooq said the three member committee would start its probe later this week and the top Pakistan hockey federation officials including the President and Secretary and all members of the hockey squad in Beijing would be questioned.
“Our job is to assess why the national sport has declined in Pakistan and why did the team fare poorly in the Olympic Games,” Farooq said.
Meanwhile, former hockey great and captain Shahbaz Ahmed has ruled himself out of the race to become national team coach or a top position in the federation, insisting Pakistan hockey will only recover after long term measures are taken to set things right in the system. “I will not accept a position because I will not be able to change anything in the system even if I’m made the coach or the team manager,” Shahbaz said in an interview. “At the moment, the only way to produce results to initiate training camps for 12-14 year olds and scout out new talent,” he added.
Captain of the 1994 World Cup winning team, Shahbaz rejected the idea of a foreign coach saying a foreign coach can never have the passion of a local coach. “If you keep a foreign coach, he will produce a result in the next 4 or 5 years… However, that doesn’t mean a local coach can’t do the same. A foreign coach cannot have that same passion and commitment that a local coach will have for Pakistan hockey,” he said.