FIH adopts the orphan that is Indian hockey
The sorry state of Indian Hockey continues to upset me. Just when I think things couldn’t get any worse, I get another rude shock. Every time there is news about Indian Hockey I dread to hear it – what bad thing could have happened now?
But this last week, for a change, there was something to feel good about - something to give me a little hope.
In fact this has reinforced my belief that god cares about sports. And he’s taking an active interest in the affairs of Indian hockey
So here’s my story of hitting rock bottom and then finding my sports faith again.
It all started after India failed to qualify for the Olympics. The IHF and its president weren’t too bothered about it but the International Hockey Federation (FIH) was. So they got Ric Charlesworth to help Indian hockey and even footed the Australian’s bill. The IHF however, treated Ric like dirt, never defining his role clearly. Ric tried hard to get a more active role - even volunteered to coach the Indians.
In the meantime, the IHF president was sacked and an ad-hoc body comprising of former players was formed under the leadership of Suresh Kalmadi.
The new committee continued its hostile approach towards Charlesworth who finally gave up and left. The IHF spared no effort in criticizing the Australian.
Then the legitimacy of this ad-hoc body became questionable as two other groups claimed to have the majority support of the state federations – and hence staked a claim to run the IHF. One of these groups happens to be led by the disgraced former president Mr KPS Gill.
The ad-hoc body meanwhile appointed MK Kaushik, in-charge of the women’s side, as the coach of the national side. Now consider this – Kaushik had been a flop in his previous stint with the national side and Indian hockey is in dire need of a fresh modern approach. This was like treating cancer with a home grown medication.
Kaushik averted this calamitous arrangement by refusing the job, saving himself some future heart burn as well.
But the IHF was not to be outdone – they were determined to find a way to sink Indian hockey further. So they went and appointed former assistant Harendra Singh. He was given a new glorified designation also – coach-in-charge. As if the former coaches were not supposed to be in charge. His selection was justified as one based on credentials and seniority – as if they were appointing a govt bureaucrat.
Then in a sudden change of policy Mr Suresh Kalmadi announced that they had decided to hire a foreign coach and Harendra Singh would be a stop gap arrangement who would give way to the foreign recruit. He said that they had discussed the matter with the FIH, who had decided to help the IHF with their search
What in the world was going on?
Hadn’t the same set of guys already driven away Ric Charlesworth – couldn’t he have been their foreign coach? He happens to be one of the finest coaches ever, was already on their rolls, was asking for the job and was working for free – his salary being paid by the FIH.
And I couldn’t believe that the FIH was actually helping them in finding a foreign coach. Hadn’t they done enough already by appointing Ric Charlesworth and giving India the right to host the 2010 Hockey World Cup .Hadn’t they learnt anything from the manner in which Ric Charlesworth was mishandled by the same set of guys? Wasn’t there enough reason to believe that helping the Indians was a futile effort? Was Mr Kalmadi bluffing that the FIH was helping them.
A few days later Ric Charlesworth was appointed as the coach of the Australian national side. Obviously the Aussies knew what Ric was capable of. Coming on the heels of the IHF’s announcement, the timing was ironical. I wish somebody could have asked one of the IHF bosses if the Aussies made the right choice
And then a couple of weeks later, on Oct 14th, the FIH actually handed over a list of 7 possible candidates. This meeting was attended by the FIH president also and the world body reiterated their desire to help India restore their lost pride. Mr Kalmadi was right. The FIH was still interested in restoring the fortunes of the game in India.
This is an amazing combination of good and bad fortune for Indian Hockey. On one hand there is the IHF – clueless about what to do and shameless about what they have done. And then there is the FIH and its Dutch president Els van Breda Vriesman who are determined to do everything to save Indian Hockey – over and over again.
I think its time that we realise that we need professionalism in coach and there is a serious lack of it in India. I was told ( am not sure) that IHF is one of the richest sports federations due to bulk govt funding. Now since its our National sports, why cant government intervene and set up a new set of office bearers at national and state level, who are either ex-players or umpires ,coaches etc.
Stupid politicans need to be kept at least 100 KM way from such initiatives.
Ah! The bureaucrats have an easy way out of this one. Politicians can’t sack the IHF officials by virtue of the autonomy granted to the sports body when the country is committed to the Olympic charter. So technically the rescue act must be staged through the FIH. I know this is as weird as it gets but…
The first thing that you expect from a player turned selector is he will not repeat the things that he kept crying for years when he was a player. But the biggest dissappointment in the adhoc committee was Dhanraj Pillay(personal opinion). Drop Tirkey, Thakur and Halappa and he may be getting some sadistic pleasure to see their ‘come back promise’ article in the newspaper. :P.Well an orphan with lots of reasons and justifications around.
http://healthcareindia-drruchibhatt.blogspot.com/
What happened to the PHL (with teams like Chennai Veerans etc.) - I was hoping it would have been atleast a mini-IPL kinda thing?
PHL is a flopshow because there were NO international players. NO proper TV Coverage. NO Marketing…etc… ( side note : One DD sports commentator is enough to kill a championship
These tournaments should be handled by professional sports management organisations. neither IHF not IOA have the mojo to “manage” such events.
Its sad to see everybody talking about malpractices in our Indian Hockey Team- say it be fielding senior (over-age)players at junior Asia cup, or match fixing (however condemned by S.Singh recently).Here comes oe new add-on, Not clearing Dues of Ric Charlesworth.Another is “Inflexibility”.Well, its actually a big allegation, and if in case the allegation is justified, Then WE ARE IN BIG DANGER.Some points he mentioned before he left were:
Indian hockey cannot run on anecdotes, there has to be some reality.
The change has to come from within.
I love India, it is a country of incredible contrasts.
Corporatise hockey in India, that’s the best way to put in place a professional structure.
All the support staff of the team needs to have a proper contract.
One good thing is that Indian media is interested in hockey and transparency to the media is very essential.
What is the aspiration of a hockey player here? Playing for the country, maybe. But what he really wants is a secure job. He doesn’t think about getting a medal in Olympics for his country, he just wants to earn his livelyhood.
India may do well in a one-off tournament in 2009. Everyone will feel happy for a while. But sustainable results? No, that’s not going to happen.
The first thing they should do is to accept their mistakes and not make excuses and then go about rectifying the grey areas.
The good thing is that we are hosting 2010 hockey world cup!
This should be the Reply!
(From a friend Shashank)
Dear Mr. Charlesworth,
It is sad that you left like this. Leave aside a handful of your dedicated fans and another few who looked at your recommendations in a neutral manner, there aren’t many who felt moved by your unavoidable departure.
You put up with a system with which we ourselves are fed up. It is something like, if I ask someone what can be done to change things in Hockey they will say,”Nothing will ever going to change … these administrators will kill the game completely.”
The underlying fact is, “Not many have courage to work towards to positive change.” That is why the administrators rule the game.
You were smart enough to interact with so many people that you understood the whole system in and out.
I once argued with a person pleading, “Atleast accept that something is wrong here. We can then take steps towards bettering it.”
The response I got was, “No, the way you see it is wrong. It works like this only.”
That sums up the whole situation.
Your mistake was that you found a problem in our system. For us, our system is the tremendous pool of players (and talent) that we have! That, by the virtue of above argument, is flawless and no one else has it to such a capacity.
We will keep pushing for recognition on this premise, no matter any medals come our way or not.
Your another mistake is, you have left our system stark naked. Because the fact is, we will not accept it. No matter, how embarrasing it is for anyone else, we won’t accept this.
Second lastly, we will keep harping on the 8 Gold Medals that we won, sometime! We have a fascination for history.
As one of the popular movie songs says: ulti seedhi .. jaisi bhi hai .. apni yahi kahani … phir bhi dil hai hindustani …!
(whatever it is .. but we still are Indians)
Last but not the least, you should learn that in India if one wins a medal or a national level award, they have every right to rule the arena, thereafter, forever. They are waivered of for any Administrative, Coaching skills,etc related questions.
Just hoping that some progressive thinking leader will come forward, one day, and understand the gravity of the situation and your recommendations!
http://healthcareindia-drruchibhatt.blogspot.com/
Kuch karo na karo yaar~! Wo australian restaurant wale ka bill chukao yaar! what crap!
Yes, poor marketing, that’s the problem. Intelligent/aggressive marketing of other sports is the need of the hour. Maybe there is a market out there, we don’ know yet!
One thing that could really help Indian Hockey is a strong showing at the 2010 World Cup. This could do for Indian hockey what Vishwanathan Anand’s titles did for chess and the Beijing Olympics did for boxing. Lets just pray to god that we get a good coach, who gets a free hand to run things till the World Cup. The sport is still alive in this country and there is enough talent out there. A two year plan under a top coach could really help matters. And then people who care for the game need to rise to the occasion. They need to do what the home crowd did for Korea in the 2002 football world cup