Scrap the PHF? Tahir Zaman Backs an Independent Pakistan Hockey Board
Pakistan just won their first Asian Games hockey medal in 12 years. So naturally, the conversation back home has turned to scrapping the federation.
That’s not a joke, and it’s not coming from the usual critics either. According to reporting by APP, the state news agency, Tahir Zaman has thrown his weight behind a campaign to replace the Pakistan Hockey Federation with an independent Pakistan Hockey Board. Zaman isn’t a TV pundit shouting from outside. He’s an Olympian, a 1994 World Cup winner, and the national team’s head coach.
What Zaman is reported to have said
Per the APP reporting, Zaman called an independent board the “need of the hour”. His argument is simple enough. If the current system has failed to deliver, a new governance model makes sense, and the government should act “without delay” if an empowered board can fix the sport’s administrative and financial problems.
His model is the obvious one. The Pakistan Cricket Board runs cricket as a strong, autonomous authority, and Zaman reportedly wants hockey to have the same thing: one body, properly empowered, running its own affairs instead of begging for them.
He’s not alone, and that’s the story
The idea didn’t start with Zaman. It was first floated by Mir Tariq Hussain Bugti, president of the Pakistan Hockey Foundation, at a news conference in Quetta. Former captain Shahbaz Ahmed Sr. has backed it too.
The striking name, though, is Rana Mujahid. He’s the PHF’s own secretary, an Olympian himself, and according to APP he has publicly supported a reformed, independent structure. When the federation’s own secretary is nodding along with the people proposing to replace the federation, something has shifted.
Worth saying clearly: nothing has been decided. There’s no government announcement, no timeline, no draft structure. This is a debate, reported by one agency so far, and debates in Pakistan hockey have a long history of going nowhere.
Why the timing matters
The timing is what makes this more than the usual noise. Pakistan’s bronze in Aichi-Nagoya earlier this month, that wild 5-3 comeback against South Korea, was the country’s first Asian Games hockey medal since 2014. A week ago the PHF was launching the Pakistan Hockey League in Islamabad and talking about reform, investment and a fresh start.
Now the head coach is saying the structure itself is the problem. Both things can be true at once, and honestly, they probably are. The players keep producing moments. The system around them keeps failing to turn moments into momentum.
For our money, a board with real money and real authority is the only version of this idea worth doing. A name change with the same people and the same empty accounts would fool nobody. Watch whether the government picks this up. That’s when it stops being talk.
