PHF arranges funds for Germany, Netherlands tour

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has arranged funds for the tour of Germany and the Netherlands, ‘The News’ learnt on Saturday.

PHF president Brig (rtd) Khalid Khokhar confirmed that the federation was capable of bearing the expenditure of the tour.

Pakistan will play two friendly matches against Germany before going to Holland for the qualifiers.

The German federation has confirmed that it would host the two matches with the Green-shirts on October 21 and 23. Pakistan will play Olympic qualifiers against the Netherlands on October 26 and 27.

The PHF had been facing shortage of funds for a long time. The Green-shirts did not play international matches due to that.

Pakistan failed to participate in the FIH’s Pro League in February this year which put their qualification for the 2020 Olympics in doubt. After hectic efforts, PHF managed to get the nod of FIH to play the qualifying round in the Netherlands.

Netherlands are ranked third in the world. Pakistan are 17th.

Khokhar said that despite meager resources PHF had arranged funds for touring Germany and the Netherlands. He said that participation in FIH competitions was necessary for any hockey-playing country. “Due to the importance of qualifiers against the Netherlands, we wanted that our players who remained away from international hockey for a long time play a few matches against any strong hockey team. Germany was in the route of the Netherlands. Thus we decided to send the team there for playing two practice matches against them,” he added.

“No doubt the Netherlands are much stronger than us but it doesn’t mean that we lose hope. There is no other way but to play well and we are preparing the Green-shirts in this regard. ,” said the PHF chief.