No policemen in Tegh Bahadur

“Punjab Police has demanded five-star treatment which can not be provided by the organisers (BHA) who are hosting the tournament without any sponsors,” said Bakshi on Saturday. “They are unwilling to stay in the accomodation provided by the organisers, stating it was not upto the mark while Olympians have used our facilities and not complained.”

“Besides, their on-field and off-field behaviour have not been up to the mark,” Bakshi explained the Punjab outfit’s absence. Punjab Police had won the Bombay Gold Cup tournament here late last year.

Organising secretary PS Sujalana said 20 top National Grade I umpires had recently taken a decision not to officiate in matches featuring Punjab Police in the wake of their continued bad behaviour with umpires.

“The decision was taken after one umpire, Avinash `Tiger’ Sharma, was struck with a stick by Punjab Police’s Manpreet Singh at the end of the final of the All-India Police tournament in December at New Delhi,” Sujlana said. Punjab Police lost to BSF after Sharma had awarded a stroke.

The umpires had apparently written to the Indian Hockey Federation requesting not to be invited to officiate matches that included the Police team. Sujlana, though, said the IHF had not taken any action on the issue so far despite IHF president KPS Gill having witnessed the incident.

That apart, most other top teams will be matching skills at BHA’s Mahindra Stadium from Tuesday, including Jalandhar’s Punjab and Sind Bank, The Bombay Gold Cup runners-up, Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Delhi’s Indian Airlines and Rail Coach Factory (Kapurthala). The local challenge will be led by Air-India, Tata Sports Club and Bharat Petroleum. BSF, Indian Airlines, PSB and BPCL have been seeded directly into the quarter-finals.

A few rule changes made by the Rules Board of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) would be implemented in the tournament, Sujlana said. The new rules include the `trial’ rule regarding the penalty-corner.

The winners of the tournament would take home Rs 40,000 and the runners-up would get Rs 25,000, it was announced. Besides, the best player of the tournament would get a trophy and a cash prize of Rs 5,000, to be awarded by the Sports Journalists Association of Mumbai.