July 26, 2021 (Al Jazeera): 37 year old seasoned centre forward, Shakeel Abbasi remembers the times he donned the Pakistan national hockey team jersey.

Once a great striker in the men’s side, Abbasi now feels he made a “big mistake” in taking hockey as a career, when he says, as a promising athlete he had a a lot of options open to him.

“I made a big mistake by picking hockey over cricket. I was very good in both but I preferred our national sport [hockey]. Sometimes, I feel it was a big mistake,” Abbasi, a three-time Olympian, told Al Jazeera News.

The veteran center-forward, once considered one of the best young strikers in world hockey, is now eligible to play in the professional hockey leagues in England, the Netherlands and Malaysia and is barely making ends meet.

According to Abbasi, “Even those leagues are not taking place due to the coronavirus pandemic. These definitely are testing times for me because one needs money to survive, this is happening to a player who has served his country for years, played in three Olympics, two World Cups and eight Champions Trophy tournaments. I pity the kids when I see them playing hockey.”

Born in the year Pakistan last won three of its three Olympic gold medals (Los Angeles 1984), Abbasi won several medals representing the national team more than 300 times from 2003 to 2014.

Pakistan has suffered a staggering and permanent decline, ranking 18th in the latest rankings after being permanently in the top four. The Tokyo Olympics is the second time in a row that Pakistan has lost a multi-sport event. It also failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup for the first time in history and finished a disappointing 12th in the 2018 edition.

For a country that has won three Olympic gold medals and four World Cup honors, losing on qualifying for back to back Olympics is nothing short of a disaster for its followers.

According to 51 year old hockey fan, Moezuddin Qureshi, “It’s heartbreaking to see Pakistan hockey in its current state, Pakistan’s national anthem played to honour the gold-winning team at the Olympics remains my best memory. It used to be a matter of huge pride for us. We grew up playing hockey on the streets but now our kids know nothing about the sport because we are nowhere to be seen in a sport that we ruled for decades.”

Some fans and experts have concluded that Pakistan hockey is “dead” while others, with modest optimism, consider it “on the ventilator”. Pakistan began its Olympic journey with silver in Melbourne in 1956, four years before a better trip to Rome, breaking six Indian gold medals. The team consolidated its position in the superpowers after winning two silver and one gold in the next three pre-bronze Olympics in 1976.

Its first missed podium came at Seoul 1988 before it managed a bronze medal in Barcelona four years later, their last Olympic medal to date.

The decline of Pakistan hockey began in the 1980s. Some experts believe that the introduction of artificial trufs in the 1970s affected the performance of Pakistani and Indian athletes. Both were named “King of the Grass.” The game has evolved over the years, with calls for better fitness, but analysts say Pakistan has fallen behind.

Cricket, the country’s most popular sport, has also been blamed for the decline of hockey, with many schools and educational institutions replacing hockey organizations with cricket. Officials of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) have been widely criticized for poor planning, as well as allegations of embezzlement and misuse of public funds.

Analysts have also accused the “legends” who have tarnished Pakistan’s image in the past of selfishness.

Sports Journalist Sardar Khan believes former players have consistently opposed the appointment of foreign coaches but have repeatedly failed when it comes to coaching the national team. He says the failure to adapt to modern hockey has deeply affected Pakistan. He said that foreign coaches were hired to help bring Pakistan up to modern hockey but they did not get enough time due to opposition from former players.

He blames the PHF for mismanagement of the sport and for not providing opportunities to the players on merit. Khan remembers that it was the media that had to raise a voice to include Sohail Abbas [an international goal scorer with 348 goals] in the team.

Ruling out cricket’s popularity as the culprit, Khan says, “Popularity of cricket is in no way a reason because cricket always had more commercial value than field hockey.”

Meanwhile, Samiullah Khan, who played in the “Golden Era”, admitted that the former players were unable to serve Pakistan hockey well but cited several other factors for the current state of the game in the country.

Khan famously known as the “Flying Horse” commented on the systemic corruption saying, “Many former players have bargained for positions [in the PHF] but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Reminiscing on his playing days, he said, the team is currently missing dynamic officials to lead the PHF. He said back when he played, they were lucky to have such officials who sincerely worked for the game. Politics at club level has also ruined the sport.

He added, “Funds, which PHF used to get, were not utilised in the right manner. We don’t have modern equipment. Venues in big cities like Karachi were centralised, making them inaccessible to local players.”

Despite the continuous slide however, the former captain remains optimistic about Pakistan being able to regain its lost status.

“If we work hard and manage hockey properly, we can see significant results within four years. Talent still exists but the government must patronise the game like it used to be in the past. Departments must give jobs to hockey players, who must be safeguarded financially. There is a need to initiate hockey leagues in our own country by bringing sponsors to ensure financial incentives for players.”

Abbasi echoed those views, terming the introduction of leagues crucial for the revival of hockey in the country. “It needs efforts from the PHF but for that, we need competent officials on the top which is not the case right now,” he said.

Retired Brigadier Khalid Sajjad Khokhar is the current president of PHF, who has been holding the post since 2015, while former player Asif Bajwa has been serving as secretary since 2019 in his second term. Despite the results, performance and rankings, Bajwa, who represented Pakistan from 1991 to 1996, argued that hockey was not in a state of despair. “We may be 18th on paper but technically we are still number eight,” Bajwa told Al Jazeera.

Following the decision of interim PHF officials to skip 2019 Pro Hockey League matches, Pakistan’s ranking dropped dramatically. It was a devastating decision. “The FIH [Hockey’s world governing body] gave us points penalties and a huge fine, which is why we failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics,” he said. But Bajwa, who held the same post from 2008 to 2013, acknowledged that much work needed to be done to get the game back on track.

“Firstly, our players need international exposure which requires travelling. We need funds for that but we are not as rich as our cricket board. Hockey has also become an expensive sport. Changes like replacing wooden sticks with graphite sticks have increased the costs. Astroturf too requires a lot of funding.”

“A lot is being planned to uplift our domestic hockey. We are working with provincial governments and working on establishing centres at regional level. We will soon start working on promotion of the game in schools. Hockey is in every Pakistani’s blood. Once this pandemic is over and things start getting back on track, we will definitely make a turnaround.”

But former Pakistan goalkeeper Imran Butt, who played international hockey from 2009 to 2018, remains unconvinced.

“It is high time we move away from illusions and accept the reality. If we had played more matches, we could have gone further down in the rankings, the PHF must come up with a good plan for the benefit of the players. Only the implementation of a proper plan is the way forward for us.”

“The PHF must work for hockey because only lip service would not take us anywhere.”

Stay tuned to BaaghiTV for latest news and Updates!