Qatar Hockey Federation, in the wake of the ongoing Asian Champions Trophy, has been hit with the news that their national side has been disqualified by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) in the recently concluded World Hockey League here.
All the results of the Qatar matches have, thus, become null and void and FIH has already removed the results of all the matches in which Qatar figured from their official website.
Qatar’s loss, however, was Oman’s gain as FIH have decided to give lucky loser a change to go ahead in the tournament. Oman, who finished third behind Qatar, will now take part in the second round of the World Hockey League.
The young Qatari team had performed exceptionally well and finished second in the tournament behind Azerbaijan, who qualified for the next stage. It is learnt that Qatar was disqualified as the federation failed to produce proper documents of few of their players on time.
As per Qatar Hockey Federation a delay from the Qatar Olympic Committee was the prime reason for the setback. Till now, Qatar was not included in the world hockey rankings and this tournament would have certainly put them on the world map.
Qatar started the tournament losing a close match against Azerbaijan 5-4 but then went on to beat Oman, ranked seventh in Asia, 4-3. Against Turkey, they won 1-0 and then beat Sri Lanka 2-1 in their last league fixtime.
The results thus giving enough evidence that the young side was peaking well under the guidance of Malaysian coach Shaiful Azli. The whole team had undergone a grueling camp in Malaysia before the tournament back home.
“It is a huge blow to say the least. The boys are very upset and so am I. But what can be done. My job is to work with the team; I’m not involved with anything else. It is disheartening but let’s hope things will fall into place and such problems will not happen,” said Azli adding that, the team can still continue taking part in other tournaments.
“It is not a ban so I don’t think this disqualification will stop us from playing in any other tournaments. But it is an opportunity missed and we will have to wait longer,” added Azli.
Qatar’s ace forward Savio Nayak was also utterly disappointed and said, “We had worked really hard and it’s really unfortunate to end that way. I’m not aware of what exactly happened. However, individually and as a team, we had spent lot of time for this tournament.
“We all worked whole-heartedly and the result was for everyone to see. Such set backs are hard to recover from. We all thought that the success in this tournament would bring in new lease of life to hockey in Qatar,” said Nayak, over the telephone from Mumbai, India where he is holidaying.
Qatar team’s left-half Sohail Mustafa shared the same sentiments as Nayak saying. “We didn’t have any ranking till now and this result would have given Qatar hockey an identity. We all are so upset because of the efforts we all had put in. We hope Qatar Hockey Federation would find a solution. As a player, we have worked hard and that what we are expected to do.”
Qatar Hockey Federation’s general secretary Abdul Nazer accepted that a delay in submitting the documents has cost Qatar team dearly.
“Yes it is true we couldn’t get some of the documents ready on time. I have taken up the matter with QOC general secretary Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and he has assured me that such things will not happen again. It is sad but what can be done now. All we can do it look ahead to future,” said Nazer.
“We requested FIH to give some more time but they were not ready. I also understand the boys are upset with the developments. They had really worked hard along with the coach Shaiful. Everyone in the federation is upset about it and it is indeed a blow,” added Nazer.