Chandigarh, January 8
Apparent provocation for national hockey probables - core group for the 2010 World Cup Hockey Tournament - to stay away from the training till their demands are met may only be a cover-up for severe infighting among those assigned the task of building up a world champion team. Players boycotted the training at the Pune coaching camp today to demand acceptance of their financial demands.
It may also be the culmination of a long unsuccessful struggle the players have been waging for past several years for match fee and sharing the sponsorship money. Besides, it also reflects the apathy of those at helm of affairs in ad hoc committee of Hockey India.
One simple and loud inference of todays’ development has been the total neglect of this once national sport. While members of the ad hoc committee of Hockey India are busy in their own agenda - capturing power in the unified restructured body - those assigned the task of training the national squad are reportedly engineering moves to oust the foreign coach Jose Brasa. And players are being used as pawns in this toppling game.
At present, there are 22 players in the camp at Pune. They are Adrian D’Souza and PR Sreejesh (goalkeepers), Sandeep Singh, Diwakar Ram, Sardar Singh and Bharat Chitkara (defenders), Gurbaj Singh, Vikram Pillay, Dhanajay Mahadhik, Vikas Sharma, Arjun Halappa, Tushar Khandekar, Birinder Lakra and Danish Mujtaba (midfielders), Shivendra Singh, Rajpal Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Gurvinder Singh Chandi, SV Sunil, Deepak Thakur, Mandeep Antil and Sarvanjit Singh (forwards).
In fact, the demand of Indian hockey players for fixing match fee for all international matches - Olympics, World Cup, Asia Cup, Asian Games, FIH tournaments, Champions Trophy, test matches and other international tournaments - has long been ignored by the Indian Hockey Federation and now the Hockey India.
While for a brief period, the players were paid a slice of
the sponsorship money from Sahara group as logo fee - players sport the logo of Sahara on their playing and non-playing kits. They were initially paid Rs 25000 each by the sponsor directly before the IHF intervened to demand that payment should be routed through the parent body. The new system did not work well and it was discontinued within a few months of the introduction of the federation route.
Since then players have been denied even the logo money, what to talk of the match fee. Also, the federation had promised cash incentives for those teams that win a medal in any recognised international tournament. Even this promise was not kept and for the past several years, no payment has been made to the players even though they had been on the medal podium a couple of times.
Also some players who come from Oil India and BPL get some token money for each match they play for their departmental team. That way, they get about Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 a month. But when the same players join the national camp and play for the country, they are paid nothing. As such, their grievance is highly justified. Why the nation should not acknowledge its national stars by promising at least the match fee that some departments pay.
Arrival of foreign coach on the scene - Jose Brasa from Spain - acted as a catalyst for intensifying infighting in the coaching wing of the Indian Hockey Federation, now Hockey India. A section of coaches have been playing games to ensure that experiments the new coach is making with experimental teams do not succeed. At present, Indian coaches with the team include Harinder Singh, Romeo James and Ramandeep Singh Grewal. Other coaches with the second team include Clarence Lobo, Gundeep Kumar and a few others. Harinder Singh had been chief coach for a while before Jose Brasa came in.
Ramandeep Grewal missed a few camps because of a bereavement in the family. Some of senior players, hurt and discarded over their repeated failures in international hockey, have become easy pawns in the hands of anti-foreign coach lobby. Going out of the team of drag flicker Sandeep Singh was a part of the larger game plan.
Though the top brass of Hockey India has been aware of the developments and internal bickerings, both among coaches and players, a little has been done to bring the warring factions together, especially when the prestige of the nation will be at stake at next months’s World Cup in the union capital. The head of the ad hoc committee of the Hockey India, AK Mattoo, who visited the national camp did give personal hearing to some players and coaches but failed to resolve the deadlock.
Those working for removal of foreign coach have the backing of some members of the ad hoc committee, besides a few selectors and some former internationals, including Olympians. But they do not realize the damage they are doing to nation’s prestige especially when the World Cup is to be in India in less than seven weeks from now.
