Pakistan Hockey Federation to get Qualified Trainer from PSB
Pakistan Times Sports Desk

LAHORE: Pakistan Sports Board has agreed to provide a qualified physical trainer to Pakistan Hockey Federation to overcome the long standing fitness problem among members of the national team.

"There is no point of hiring a foreign coach as PSB has agreed to provide a highly qualified physical trainer who will be joining us shortly ",said Secretary PHF here on Tuesday.

Khalid said Pakistan team needs a new fielding culture as most of the players seemed fatigued or tired in the second half of a match which hampered the overall performance of the team.

" The most alarming factor is poor physical fitness standard of players and this problem is long associated with our team and we suffered a lot because of this weakness and now it is the time to get rid of it ",he said.

Answering a question he said hiring the services of a foreign trainer is not a wise thought as a inland trainer of same qualification is available.

He said Pakistan team will feature in two invitational tournaments,first taking part in a 4-nation tournament in Moscow, Russia in July followed by participation in a similar event in Beijing,China.

PHF official said it is a sour reality that the european countries have not invited Pakistan and India in those regular annual tournaments in which both the countries of the sub-continent were regular participants.

" Most probably the reason behind is the sagging fortunate of hockey teams of both the countries for not getting invitation from the organisers ",he asserted.

PHF Secretary said the participation in two tournaments in Moscow and Beijing will,however,try to fill the void, as the team badly needs competitive training to prepare for the Champions Trophy.

He said efforts are underway to include Pakistan U-21 team in a tournament in Germany as Pakistan could not confirm its participation owing to incompetency of previous regime of the PHF who did not take the matter seriously.

" Playing with top european countries junior teams will definitely help improve the standards of our junior team but unfortunately the previous management of PHF put up some conditions regarding the participation of their team which the organisers refused to accept",he added.

He said PHF under the leadership of its President, Mir Zafar Ullah Khan Jamali was making efforts to revamp Pakistan hockey and to lift the game out of gloom.

" It is not possible to put things in order in a short span of time years long efforts are needed to strengthen the base of the game and then expecting good results will be fair thought",he added.●