Poor arrangements mar Asia Cup Hockey

by Pakistan Watan

KUANTAN, Poor arrangements by Asian Hockey Federation and Malaysian Hockey Federation has become a great cause of concern for players and media men in the ongoing 8th Asia Cup Hockey now in progress at Kuantan Hockey Stadium, Malaysia.

Players are facing hardship in substandard changing rooms and other relevant international level facilities for this elite 7-nation continental contest.

“Its pathetic to see a lot of shortcomings here in the stadium,” a senior player told APP on the condition of anonymity.

“The organizers should have made proper and adequate arrangements while staging a competition at new centre like Kuantan,” he commented.

There was an interesting scene on Sunday evening after heavy flooding of the ground following downpour as ground staff was seen clearing the water on the turf with advertising hoarding. After the rain, the turf showed its unevenness as water was not consistently lying on the turf.

Announcers making blunders by crediting the goals to wrong players. During the Indo-Pak match, Haseem Khans second goal was credited to Rehan Butt while Sohail Abbas match winning goal was given to half back Waseem Ahmed. Similarly they made mistakes in scorers name for the Indian team. The mistake was later cleared when official score-sheeted distributed at the media box.

Small media box become crowded with the arrival of contingents of national and international media and photographer. Media box can hardly accommodate 15 reporters.

Screen showed wrong timing which disturbed the players and officials. During the Pakistan-China match, first half was shown has ended with under two minutes still to go. Match stopped was resumed later for two minutes by the umpires.

Earlier, Pakistan officials lodged protest with the organizers for changing the timing of their matches against China and India.

Since the start of the tournament, no official of AHF or MHF visited to enquire the welfare of local or visiting media.

Courtesy:Pakwatan.com