Pakistan

LAHORE: A Pakistan’s umpire in the FIH penal, Faiz Muhammad Fazi, has said the country needs more representation in the elite umpiring forum of the FIH and this objective can only be achieved by grooming young educated hockey players.

He said it was imperative to motivate the youth to hockey specially the young and educated players to take up umpiring as a full time profession. “We have lesser representation in the FIH and it is high time to address the issue and to have more qualified umpires to join the FIH umpiring panel,” he said.

He said the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) in the past four years took drastic measures to train and groom umpires and to strengthen the base of technical officials by introducing a number of development plans and ensuring the participation of home umpires in the international events abroad.

“In the past umpiring department was badly ignored which resulted in a few qualified umpires. That is why Pakistan has very low representation in the FIH,” he added. Faiz, who hails from Peshawar and is officiating in the ongoing Champions Trophy, said due to hard work of the PHF it was hoped that a number of qualified umpires would be produced in the coming years and Pakistan would be represented by more umpires in the FIH. Faizi and Rashid Butt are the only two Pakistani umpires on the FIH penal. app

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