Pakistan Hockey Federation declines Hockey India's financial assistance

Hockey India had expressed concern over the situation

The Pakistan Hockey Federation(PHF), which is currently enduring financial issues, has declined an offer made by Hockey India(HI), to help it get out of its monetary struggles after the request led to strong reactions from ex-players and a cabinet minister.

An HI official revealed last Saturday that they were worried about its neighbours, not being able to able to send a team to the Olympic qualifiers, to be held in Netherlands due to financial problems and they were willing to help them.

"We cannot accept this offer from Hockey India despite their polite gesture as this is purely an internal matter of the Pakistan Hockey Federation," PHF President Akhtar Rasool told PTI.

Former Pakistan captain and member of 1976-Olympic bronze winning team Samiullah said that it is shameful that Pakistan have to think of seeking India’s help to resolve its issues and added that the PHF are creating a drama only to get more money.

"It is all drama by the PHF to get more funds. It is a shameful situation for us that India is offering us financial assistance for our hockey," the 63-year-old said.

Former federal minister for information of the country Pervez Rasheed said that the government had released a large sum of money for the development of the game and questioned where all the money had gone.

"The government has released around USD 12 million to the PHF as special funds in the last few years so it is not as if the government is not supporting hockey but the PHF needs to get its house in order and tell us where this money was spent because we have been told more than the players it was spent on other things," he told reporters.

We have asked the government for an audit official: Rana

Pakistan have failed to send a team to represent at the ongoing Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Kula Lumpur and training tours to Australia and Korea, that are scheduled for next month , also now seem to be in jeopardy.

The secretary of the PHF, Rana Mujahid said that they have asked the government to include any personnel from the audit department on the executive committee and also said that they have got audited accounts in the last few years.

“We have asked the government to include any official of their audit department on our executive committee so that he can have a look at all our accounts and where we spend money.

"We have got audited accounts for the last few years,” he said.

Mujahid had said last week that the training camp, scheduled to be held in Rawalpindi, in preparation for the Olympic qualifiers had also been postponed since they couldn‘t pay for the daily expenses of the players and the coaches.

He, though, sounded confident about the government rescuing the body from this problem and a source in the federation said that on strong insistence from the federal minister, the PHF was planning to restart its training camp in Lahore from Friday.