Qasim promises to lift hockey to its past glory Mansoor Ahmad

LAHORE: “I shall try my level best to up lift the game of hockey and restore the lost glory ignoring political affiliations and taking along former captains, players having knowledge of the game “. This was stated by newly appointed President, Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Qasim Zia in a press conference at National Hockey on Thursday. Secretary PHF, Asif Bajawa, Brig ® Atif, Hassan Sardar and Qamar Ibrahim were also present at the press conference. Qasim Zia said with the consultation of the secretary deadline of Ist January has been fixed for grounding the objectives like establishing a Hockey Academy and to streamline the functions of the federation. He said the senior most hockey player Brig.(r) Atif has kindly agreed to accepted becoming advisor and former striker Hassan Sardar has been appointed the chief selector of the PHF, while Farhat Hussain, Rana Mujahid, Khalid Bashir and Muhammad Shafiq will be the selection committee members. Chief Coach Hassan Sardar will be the overall in charge of the Junior team management, while Qamar Ibrahim chief coach, Danish Kaleem and Ahmad Alam will be the part of junior selection committee. The senior team management will be announced later, Qasim Zia added. He also said that PHF has decided to form a Research Programme Committee to promote the game, President PHF, secretary, chief coach and one foreign consultant will be the members of the committee which will study the decline of the game in Pakistan and to give suggestions to improve the game and provide jobs to the hockey players as well. To a question he said that the government will support the game and we had the plan of glamorizing the game of hockey to attract sponsors. Answering another question he said, he had consulted Shahbaz Sr and Manzoor Junior but they showed their inability saying that they would not be able to give the required time to the game. He said as the junior hockey series with India starting from November 12 PHF has decided to call up 80 junior players selected by the previous body for the trials to be held at Hockey Stadium of Karachi on 26 and 27th of this month and the short camp will be held at the same venue till the start of the 5 matches series starting on November 12. The second match will be played at Rawalpindi on the 14th , third at Faisalabad on the 16th fourth at Sialkot on the 18th and last match of the series will be played at Lahore on 20th of October. He said that the selection committee has been appointed till the World Cup 2010, while the junior hockey team management will work till the Junior World Cup. The junior women hockey team will participate in the Asian Junior Women Hockey Championship in Malaysia December 2008, for this he had instructed the coaches to help the women wing of the PHF, President PHF said. Hassan Sardar said his team would try to increase the players pool, senior players of the present team would be given time to show their fitness and they would not be forced to resign. Qamer Ibrahim said his first target would be the series against India and he plans to summit a plan to PHF for the improvement before after the Indian series.