PHF executive board meeting ends in controversy

KARACHI - The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Executive Board held its requisitioned meeting here late Tuesday morning at the HCP with representatives of Balochistan and Sindh seeking the postponement of the meeting till the naming of the new president of the PHF.

Balochistan secretary Qaiser Khan Loni informed The Nation after the meeting that lasted two hours that he and Rao Salim of Sindh had told members to put off the meeting which should be called after the nomination of the new PHF president which is expected to be officially named some time on late Tuesday. However, it could not be confirmed personally from the Sindh secretary whether he had also supported the postponement. Other members of the meeting did not pay any heed to the suggestion, he said.

After the meeting, a number of local hockey organisers even questioned the existence of the Executive Board in place of the PHF Council. However, a senior official of the PHF secretariat who is specially here for the meeting, said that the Executive Board was set up in place of the PHF Council some time ago.

After the meeting, the nominated secretary of the PHF former Olympian Asif Bajwa addressed a media briefing with all those who attended the meeting sitting with him.

Bajwa said in the absence of the president of the PHF, senior vice president of the PHF Saeed Khan from NWFP should preside over the meeting which approved his nomination as secretary of the PHF.

He said as the meeting was a requisitioned one, it was not possible to put off the scheduled meeting after Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned from the office of the president of the PHF late Monday evening.

It was Jamali, he said, who had advised him to shift the meeting venue to Karachi from Lahore where it was earlier scheduled to be held.