Govt. should fix responsibility for team India’s debacle: KPS

This,he added,was due to the fact that the office bearers of Hockey India (HI) have along with the office bearers of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) made a prestige issue of not allowing any player who participated in the World Series Hockey to compete for the Olympics.

“ The WSH was organised by the IHF in collaboration with Nimbus. And since it was an IHF event theses players were barred from competing for Olympics.,” he said talking to the Indian Express.

“ When the IHF organised the national hockey tournaments in Bhopal,Vidya Stokes who was then the President of HI wrote to the players not to play under the IHF. She threatened them that in case they did that they will not be allowed to play in the other events. That is is exactly what happened,” he said

“ Also the negative role played by a controversial union minister should be probed in the selection of the team for Olympics. When we approached the sports ministry officers about the IOA and HI not selecting some of the best players,we were told that the selection process was being handled politically and it needs to be sorted out at that level. What has politics and the congress party to do with selection of the Indian hockey team for Olympics?” he asked.

“ I may remind here that when I stood for elections for the presidentship if he IHF in Bhopal in 2004 the then chief minister of the state,who is now a union minister,tried to impose curfew in Bhopal. He called a cabinet meeting at 2.30 am and tried to scuttle the elections in the garb of a law and order problem. All this he did because he wanted one of his favorites to head the IHF to manipulate the IHF,” said Gill.

When asked about the chances of the Indian hockey team in the future Gill said the good news was that for the first time in the history of Olympics the powers of the umpires had been curtailed. “Now for as yellow card a player has to sit out only for five minutes and in case of a dispute the VDO umpire is referred to. Had this been the case earlier,India would have qualified for the Beijing Olympics. In the Beijing Olympics qualifiers the Indian team played with just ten players at any given point of time. A day before the match the Indian team was woken up by the officials of the Federation of International Hockey and lectured for 45 minutes about the rules. This is unheard of in the Olympics,” said Gill.

“ The process for the selections has been more transparent now and there are chances that the FIH will not be able to manipulate the process much in the future,” he added.