Hockey hiccups again

Every time it feels like the last time, but the Pakistan Hockey Federation seems to find itself in a quandary over and over again and usually the headline brings with it something on the lines of ‘lack of funds.’

Hockey, field hockey in our case, might not be one of the top five games in the world but it did rule the roost for nearly a decade in the 80s just because we invented or finalised the shape of the game and we knew better than anyone how to play it.

However, in the last decade field hockey has had its share of changes where the two 30-minute halves were morphed into four 15-min quarters, inspired by basketball, to attract the audiences and the formula did work but Pakistan somehow lost the plot in between all of this.

Before the commercialisation of sports like cricket and hockey in Pakistan, money was never the primary problem. Hockey players were given plots and awards for their achievements but they didn’t make fortunes with regard to dailies and match fee, but everything changes, and so did hockey.

Today, the national sport always draws comparison with cricket, and fairly so the domestically-born game should be the centre of attention but that hasn’t been the case since Pakistan started losing, or to be honest, stopped winning the major world tournaments.

Is hockey itself to blame for not being interesting enough and hence not attracting private investments unlike cricket, is a question still unanswered.

Meanwhile, PCB chairman Ehsan Mani refused to pull the PHF out of the financial crisis, while the government also isn’t much interested in the federation’s plea to grant funds for participation in the upcoming World Cup in India.

The Pandora’s box of previous funds and their embezzlement or at least their audit report is surely due, but whatever the case, hockey deserves the attention that it demands.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2018.

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