All teams in Hockey-5 to get prize money

KARACHI: All teams participating in the hockey-5 championship in Lahore in Ramadan will get prizes, ‘The News’ has learnt.

Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) sources said that preparations for Hockey-5 were in the final stage. The championship will have six teams, named after major cities.

Majority of the participants will be those boys who are part of the national senior and junior teams. The players will be picked by coaches Khawaja Junaid and Tahir Zaman, but they will not be coaching any team during the tournament.

Those coaches who participated in various workshops organised by the PHF recently in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar will be given opportunity to show their coaching skills.

Sources in the PHF admitted that the number of participating teams was low, but they added that the PHF wanted to maintain the quality of the game.

Hockey-5 is a faster version of field hockey. There are only five players who compete for 40 minutes. They can score from any part of the field which is smaller than the regular hockey field.

PHF sources said handsome amount of prize money was being offered in the event and it was for the first time that all participating six teams would get prize money. There will be awards for the player of the tournament, the best goalkeeper and the highest scorer.

By giving lucrative prizes PHF wants to attract the players who have either quit playing in recent years or prefer playing abroad where they get paid handsome amounts.

An official said that when prize money would be given from top to bottom it would be a good message at the grassroots level and boost the morale of domestic hockey players who remained away from the field because of lack of monetary benefits.