LAHORE: The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Brig. (retd.) Sajjad Khokhar is not happy over the performance of the Pakistan team in the recently concluded World Hockey League and he has started to contact several former Olympians to bring new head coach and other officials in the team management.
Though Pakistan has qualified for the next year’s World Cup despite attaining a poor seventh place among the ten participating teams in the WHL held in London and coach Khawaja Junaid has preferred to blow his trumpet over it, sources say PHF president does not consider it a respectful manner for the team to enter the World Cup as the performance of Pakistan was clearly below par in WHL.
Pakistan conceded as many as 28 goals in the WHL but managed to score just nine. The Greenshirts faced defeats by heavy margins against India twice, Holland, Argentina and even the lowly-ranked Canada. Their only two victories came against minnows Scotland and China.
The PHF president, sources says, is also unhappy over coach Junaid’s statement in which he said the main target ahead of him was to qualify for the World Cup which has been achieved.
The new appointments are likely to be finalised in a week’s time as several former Olympians, who are under consideration for induction in the team management, are currently out of Pakistan. There are reports that Manzoor Junior is most likely to get the post of head coach and manager. The PHF Congress meeting is also likely to be held on July 24 to get the approval of the new officials of the team management.
