PHF served legal notices to Olympians, claims Bajwa

LAHORE: The dispute between Pakistan Hockey Federation and some Olympians has taken a serious turn after the sports body claimed that it had served legal notices to the former players for making unsubstantiated and serious allegations against its office bearers.

The PHF got riled after around 13 Olympians including Islahuddin Siddiqui, Shahnaz Sheikh, Samiullah, Shahbaz Ahmed, Naved Alam, Tahir Zaman, Khalid Mehmood, Rasheed-ul-Hasan, Ayaz Mehmood wrote a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to hold an inquiry into the PHF affairs.

The Olympians called for a thorough investigation fearing that some PHF office bearers were involved in human trafficking to Europe under the garb of sending hockey players and teams abroad.

The Olympians also assailed the performance of the team under the present PHF set up.

“We have today sent legal notices for damages to these Olympians and they now have to either prove their allegations, apologize publicly or pay us damages in court,” PHF secretary Asif Bajwa said.

But Islahuddin and some other Olympians said they didn’t receive any legal notices from the PHF as of now.

“If and when we get these notices we will consult our legal advisors and respond accordingly but if the federation wants to go to court we are also mentally prepared to fight them in court because we can’t allow Pakistan hockey to be destroyed like this under the present set up,” he said.

Bajwa said that the PHF had tried to give utmost respect to the Olympians but was forced to serve the legal notices as the allegations made by them were badly damaging the image of Pakistan hockey.

“We are trying to revive international hockey events in Pakistan after successfully hosting the Test series against China and these sort of statements make things difficult for us and damage our image abroad,” he said.

Bajwa said Pakistan was trying to host a four-nation event before the Olympics next year in Lahore and had got positive response from some teams.

“In these circumstances we can’t afford to have anyone accusing any of our office bearers of corruption or misuse of power,” he added.

Pan Americans champions, Argentina are said to have responded positively to Pakistan’s offer to play in the planned four-nation event.