KARACHI: President Hockey Federation (PHF) Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Monday resigned from his office. Talking to reporters here at the Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP), Jamali said that he had not been pressurised for tendering a resignation.

In Islamababd, meanwhile, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani approved the appointment of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Punjab’s president and a former national hockey player, Qasim Zia, as the new president of the PHF.

The decision was made after the sitting-president of PHF and a former Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Jamali, finally decided to resign from his office after bearing months-long criticism from veteran hockey players and the national game’s lovers from around the country.

The approval of Zia’s appointment came after Jamali informed the PM on phone early on Monday about his decision to resign.

Blaming Jamali for the hockey slump in the country, Pakistan’s former Olympians had kick-started a campaign to revive the national game of hockey. They were demanding his removal from office and the appointment of Zia in his place.

Qasim Zia, a veteran hockey player who was a member of the 1984 Olympic gold medal-winning squad, is a PPP stalwart and served as Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly in Pervez Musharraf’s era.

“I was not pressurised to tender my resignation but if my leaving does any good to the game of hockey then there will be no one happier than Jamali,” Mir Zafarullah Jamali said.

He added that if his services will ever be needed for the game then he would be ready to render them. “I never asked for the job, it was given to me for the country and I took it and for the country I will always be ready to extend my services.

“When I entered as President PHF the federation had only 12 to 14 lakhs in its account and now when I am leaving there is around five and a half crore rupees in its account,” the former Prime Minister said.

When asked if he was resigning because of the pressure from the women wing of PHF he said he knew a day before that the tournament in Colombo was cancelled then how he could have given the money for the tournament which had been cancelled.

“I had always been asking the Patron in Chief to let me step down but he insisted for me to continue with the job and now it is not because of them (women wing) that I am resigning,” he said. Chief Coach Jhangir Butt, Assistant Coach Kamran Ashraf, Project Director Waseeq Ahmed and Naveed Alam, the Associate Secretary, also resigned with president Jamali.