PSHL to be held in March: PHF chief

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Khalid Sajjad Khokhar has said that the preparation for Pakistan Super Hockey league (PSHL) is in the final stage and its details would soon be made public.

The first professional hockey league in the country is likely to be held in March. The PHF chief told ‘The News’ on Monday that an FIH delegation was to visit Pakistan during PSHL. He said that the dates would be finalised keeping in mind other engagements.

“It will be a great occasion as a galaxy of international players will come here for this league. We wanted to organise the event in Pakistan in the best possible manner. So we took our time. World Hockey XI, FIH top officials, Holland’s Paul Litjens and Floris Jan Bovelander, and Germany’s Christian Blunck visited Pakistan last year due to which FIH gave us the Hockey Series Open with four countries. Now we are ready to organise the PSHL with participation of foreign players. All of them are from Europe and Olympic champions Argentina,” he added.

“So far, we have managed to arrange at least two foreign player for each team. But we are trying to rope in more players so that each team could have one or two more foreign players. It will enhance the standard of the league. Our players will then get experience of tough hockey,” the PHF chief said.

He said that a beautiful mascot for PSHL was under preparation. The league, which will have six teams, was to be organised in January but had to be delayed because foreign players said they would find it difficult to manage the traveling documents right after Christmas and New Year holidays.

Khokhar said that PHF had done a lot of hard work for FIH Pro League and PSHL. “Both are highly important events for the promotion of Pakistan hockey,” he said. He said that PHF had informed the government about all the progress and hoped that the financial issues would be resolved before these events.

It is learnt that the PHF has outsourced the handling of PSHL to a private company. There would be no player from Australia or any Asian country, a source said.The source said players would be coming from Germany, Holland, Spain, Belgium, France and Argentina.

The teams have been named Karachi Kararay, Lahori Ustad, Peshawar Dilawar, Multan Sufiyan, Islamabad Commander, and Quetta Defender.The publicity and marketing of the event will be launched from February in various cities of the country. All the matches of the PSHL will be played in Lahore. PHF is trying to arrange live telecast of the league, a source said. The details of the bidding process for the players and other matters would be available on the league’s website, the source said.