Qatar: Hockey in desert
Have you heard about hockey in Qatar?
The Qatar Hockey Federation was formed in 2007 under the Qatar Olympic Committee. The QHF is an active member in FIH, in AHF, in the Arab hockey confederation and the West Asia Hockey coordination group.
“Amr Halin, player and coach in Qatar, gives us some insight on what is like hockey in the “desert”: “We have a senior national team which consist of the head coach, assistant coach, goalkeepers coach plus one doctor and a squad that includes 18 players. Currently we have not yet chosen our youth team but we have around 100 under-21 players that play local hockey in around 9 teams. Right now our national hockey field is being removed as the government is building a 2022 World Cup stadium in the same place, therefore we were moved to a new location where work in being done in order to install two new turfs. Currently the main hockey activity in Qatar is happening in indoor.
The Qatar government supports the sport with an endless injection ofmoney, and if any other sports federation does not have enough economical resources to host or to play a tournament, then the QOC (Qatar olympic committee) will contribute. Nevertheless, some smaller sports federations, whose sport is not very popular or in a developmental stage, might not receive a huge support, however we do enough aid to host 1 to 2 tournaments a year plus 1 camp.
The belief around the society is that only Pakistan and India play this sport and they don’t know that hockey is a major sport in Europe as well.”
Is interesting to learn how hockey is growing worldwide and hopefully Qatar will keep on developing the activity making this sport became well known in the society.
