By Sohail Ali
LAHORE, Oct 05 (APP): Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) President Brig (retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar has said that the hockey federation, despite facing shortage of funds, is putting in a lot of hard work for betterment and progress of the national game hockey.
He said here on Monday that he was very much positive that recent meetings with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) minister and the chief ministers would produce positive results and resolve the issue of financial constraints.
He was optimistic that with the availability of the required amount of funds, the PHF would be able to resume the journey of success in the game of hockey and we would regain the lost glory.
The PHF chief said that the PHF was launching talent hunt programme in Kashmir, Northern Areas, and Gilgit to find fresh talent, which would be physically strong and having access to national hockey so that the strength and power of Pakistan hockey could be further strengthened.
Khalid Sajjad Khokhar said that the PHF always utilised the funds in the right direction so that the journey of the improvement of the national game continues.
The PHF president said that it is true that there is a severe shortage of hockey infrastructure in Pakistan. “ In the Netherlands, alone, there are more than 500 modern hockey turfs.
While in Pakistan there are a only a dozen hockey turfs but we must remember that Pakistan has won the Olympic gold medal thrice and won world cups four times and many other international hockey titles by playing on less available hockey infrastructure We are trying to improve our existing hockey infrastructure and planning the journey to success, keeping in mind our resources” , he asserted .
Brig (retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar said that when he took over the charge of the hockey federation, he started many new departmental hockey teams and revive the closed departmental hockey teams.
” We had created employment opportunities which started to solve the financial problems of our hockey players to a great extent but later this process could not go ahead but now we are once again trying to solve the financial problems of our hockey players with the support of the Government and we are confident that we will soon be able to overcome this problem”.
