Pakistan face disciplinary problems and misconduct
THE Pakistan hockey squad are becoming famous in the World Cup for all the wrong reasons.
Their national assistant coach Danish Kaleem has been reprimanded for indiscipline yesterday by International Hockey Federation (FIH) technical delegate.
During the match between Pakistan and Malaysia on Dec 5, Danish entered the Kalinga Stadium without wearing the mandatory tournament accreditation tag.
When Danish was stopped and quizzed by the security officials, he shouted at them and acted in an inappropriate behaviour towards security officials.
At the hearing, Danish admitted the breach of conduct and apologised.
Prior to that, player Ammad Butt was reprimanded for deliberately jumping and hurting Malaysian forward Faizal Saari while rushing to defend a penalty corner in the Group D match on Dec 5.
Ammad was first handed one match suspension before he was let off the hook by the FIH technical delegate on Saturday with a condi- tion – that he would be suspended if he receives a yellow card in remainder of the tournament.
Pakistan team manager Sardar Hassan apologised to FIH for Ammad and Danish’s misconducts.
“We came to Bhubaneswar to play hockey and I hope my players and officials will stay focused in the World Cup to reach the second round,” said Sardar.
“We don’t want any more problems as this can affect our team’s preparation in the World Cup.”