Pakistan to host quadrangular IHF event in March

KARACHI: Pakistan is set to host the International Handball Federation (IHF) Women Youth Under-18 and Junior Under-20 Handball Central Asia Trophy from March 2-6 at the newly-built Indoor Hall of the Government College University Faisalabad.

In the event, four nations including hosts Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will feature.

Turkmenistan had also confirmed its entry but is not coming due to technical reasons. Mongolia had also confirmed and was set to arrive but due to long journey of 35 hours the IHF did not agree and said that such a long journey was not appropriate for the players and so the same nation was put in another zone.

The matches of both categories will be played under round robin league.

The technical committee and managers meeting will be held on March 1 at 6:30pm at the Pakistan Handball Federation (PHF) meeting room at Faisalabad.

Pakistan youth team will play their first match on March 2 at 3pm against Tajikistan whereas Pakistan juniors will play their first game on the same day against Uzbekistan at 5pm.

The final match of the junior category will be played on March 6 at 5pm between the top two teams of the league round and medal ceremony will be held at 6:30pm.

During IHF Trophy refresher course for referees and coaches will also be conducted by the IHF instructors who are also technical delegates of this Trophy.

The teams will arrive at Faisalabad on March 1 at 3pm. The referees and technical delegates nominated by International Handball Federation (IHF) are from Bahrain, China, Iran, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They will arrive at Faisalabad on February 28 via different flights.

Ali Anan Qamar, Deputy Commissioner Faisalabad, has been nominated as chairman of the organising committee.

The PHF secretary Javed Iqbal will act as organising secretary and Dr Shoaib Shafiq will deliver his services as Competition Manager. Professor Dr Shahid Kamal, Vice-Chancellor University of Faisalabad, is the patron-in-chief of this event.

An exhibition match will also be played between Pakistan women youth and Uzbekistan youth team on March 7 at 10am at the international open hard court flooring University of Agriculture Faisalabad which is the hub of handball in Pakistan.

A senior official of the PHF told 'The News' that they already have requested for NOC well in time along with all the required documents but so far they are waiting for the reply.

It was also learnt that the PHF has written a letter to the IPC Ministry for grant for the purpose but so far the ministry has not given any reply to the federation.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan has been put in the Central Zone in order to separate it from India as in the past visa issues would damage the participation of these neighbouring nations in the South Asian Zone competitions.