Hockey: Islamabad removed as hosts

Asian hockey body awards rights to Thailand for Indoor Asia Cup۔


Our Correspondent October 29, 2012

KARACHI: The Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) has stripped Islamabad as the host for next month’s Indoor Asia Cup, rejecting the Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) request to delay the event for a month. 

The event is scheduled for November 18 to 21 but the PHF wanted to push the tournament to finalise arrangements.

However, according to a PHF official, the Asian body declined the request and gave the hosting rights to Thailand.

The change in venue has come as a setback to the PHF’s bid to revive international action as several Asian countries were expected to participate.

Meanwhile, another PHF official said that they decided to skip the tournament and will not send a team to Thailand.   “It’s being done to save expenses,” said the official.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30th, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

Jawad U Rehman | 11 years ago | Reply

And the slow demise of international competitive sports continues in the country. It is sad to see the situation of sports in the country compared to 70s and 80s. The 1978 Asian games were awarded to Islamabad (ultimately moved to Bangkok too). Today, we can't even have Bangladesh visit us for a bilateral Cricket series. For the first few Asian games, Pakistan used to finish in the top 5 to 7 in medals, today we struggle to get a single gold medal. Pakistan has not won an Olympics medal of any kind in the last 20 years. Pakistan hosted Cricket, Squash, and Hockey World Cups in 80s and 90s. Pakistan Open Squash was part of the top squash circuit (grand slam) in the 80s. Today it hardly attracts any foreign players. The list goes on. The worst is nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it.

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