{"id":40950,"date":"2026-02-19T12:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=40950"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:04:26","slug":"pakistan-hockey-chief-resigns-after-shabby-winless-australia-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=40950","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan hockey chief resigns after ‘shabby’ winless Australia tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pakistan’s hockey chief resigned on Thursday, a day after the prime minister ordered an inquiry into a shambolic tour of Australia that saw the national team scrubbing dishes in a guest house.<\/p>\n

Tariq Bugti, who headed the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), stepped down following complaints by national team players in last week’s whitewash tour, and after premier Shehbaz Sharif launched a probe.<\/p>\n

While cricket is hugely popular in Pakistan, field hockey is the country’s national sport.<\/p>\n

But Pakistan — three-time Olympic champions and four-time World Cup winners — have plummeted to as low as 14th in the international rankings.<\/p>\n

Team captain Ammad Butt slammed the PHF, blaming the body for not paying for a hotel, with players forced to wash their clothes and dishes at what they deemed substandard accommodation in Hobart, Tasmania.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the Australia tour, players boycotted a training camp over non-payment of a daily allowance of $110 — their only income with no match fees or central contracts.<\/p>\n

“I am tired of the tension which we have suffered in the last year,” Butt told AFP.<\/p>\n

“First I had to fight for the daily allowances and now this shabby treatment on the tour.”<\/p>\n

Butt said when the players landed in Sydney en-route to Hobart for the second round of their Pro League fixtures, they had to roam the streets with no hotel to stay in.<\/p>\n

“When we reached Hobart, the management told us it did not have sufficient funds to pay the hotel charges and we had to live in a guest house,” Butt said.<\/p>\n

“The players had to prepare their breakfast, do dishwashing and wash clothes. In this situation what kind of performance could a player produce for the team?”<\/p>\n

Pakistan have lost every one of their eight matches in the Pro League, losing 3-0 and 3-2 to Australia and 5-2 and 3-1 to Germany — all in Hobart.<\/p>\n

They lost to Argentina and the Netherlands in the first round in December.<\/p>\n

“I resign from my post,” Bugti said in a press conference on Thursday, calling for an investigation after Butt “threatened the management on the tour”.<\/p>\n

Pakistan have not qualified for the last three Olympics and were 12th when they last played a World Cup in 2018.<\/p>\n

Next month, Pakistan will feature in a qualifying round in Egypt to claim a place in the next World Cup, hosted by the Netherlands and Belgium in August.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan’s hockey chief resigned on Thursday, a day after the prime minister ordered an inquiry into a shambolic tour of Australia that saw the national team scrubbing dishes in a guest house. Tariq Bugti, who headed the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), stepped down following complaints by national team players in last week’s whitewash tour, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}