Aikman set to receive salary after significant delay
He has not been paid for more than eight months
The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Secretary Haider Hussain has confirmed that head coach Siegfried Aikman’s dues will be cleared soon.
It must be noted that Aikman has been working without a salary for more than eight months.
“We are responsible for the delay in payments to Siegfried Aikman. We had an agreement with PSB that they will pay his salary,” said Hussain.
“I have a lot of respect for Aikman for working without salary. But his cheque is now ready and will be dispatched as soon as it is signed by the Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Ehsan-ur-Rehman Mazari,” he added.
Aikman was appointed Pakistan coach till 2026 in December 2021. He has previously coached the Japanese team, which stunned the world by winning the Asian Games title in 2018.
Hussain also spoke about Pakistan not qualifying for the ongoing FIH World Cup in India.
Pakistan failed to qualify for the super four of the last year’s Asia Cup, which meant that they were not able to qualify for the World Cup.
The Green Shirts lost an important match against Japan during the Asia Cup after one of their goals was disallowed for having 12 players on the field instead of 11.
“We are disappointed about not playing the World Cup,” he said. “If we didn’t have an additional player on the field in the Asia Cup, we could have been playing the World Cup.”
“An inquiry committee was also formed to investigate the matter but we still haven’t received their report,” he added.
Despite Pakistan’s rich history in hockey, winning multiple Olympic Gold Medals and World Cup titles, the situation of the game in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse over the last couple of decades.
Pakistan failed to qualify for back-to-back Olympic Games, 2016 and 2022, while also missing out on the 2023 World Cup. They also faced the humiliation of missing a World Cup for the first time in their history back in 2014.
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