New Delhi: Poor administration has left Indian hockey on shaky ground ahead of the Asian Games in Japan, which begin on Saturday.
There have been some promising showings lately, but the Hockey India League (HIL) is now staring at an existential crisis.
With very little time left before the third edition — scheduled between late December and early February — and a pre-tournament mini-auction looming, franchises are pulling out.
“The sports minister has given time till October 14. The state government has sanctioned ₹ 25.4 crore for the event and is offering free entry for all matches. The situation is even more dire in the women’s HIL where only APL Pipers have confirmed participation, with Ranchi Royals, Shrachi Bengal Tigers and JSW Soorma Hockey Club either being non-committal or informing the federation about their inability to participate. Mann also announced that Punjab is ready to help put forward one team each for men and women for the HIL.
The eighth team — HIL Governing Council team — was anyway a temporary outfit and cannot be a permanent solution,” a Hockey India (HI) official told HT on condition of anonymity. The other four teams—JSW Soorma Hockey Club, Accord Tamil Nadu Dragons, Shrachi Bengal Tigers, and Ranchi Royals—have either told Hockey India (HI) they are not taking part (some on paper, some verbally) or are non-committal about their participation. “At present, the women’s league looks very difficult,” said the official. Apart from team officials, Tirkey, Gill, secretary (sports) and Sports Authority of India (SAI) director general Hari Ranjan Rao, TOPS CEO NS Johal also attended the meeting where Bhola Nath joined virtually, a ministry official told HT. “He told all the stakeholders to work out a plan for the financial stability of the league and welfare of the players,” he said. The model needs to be worked upon,” a team official present in the meeting told HT. The minister asked the league to be revamped with a revised financial model and resolve trust in governance issues,” the team official said.
“Out of the eight team, right now, only APL Pipers, Vedanta Kalinga Lancers and Hyderabad Toofans are on board for the HIL. From the discussions what came out was that a body needs to be formed which will run the administration of HIL where the franchises will also have a stake. It has been reliably learnt that a new Bengaluru franchise is interested while a replacement for the Chennai franchise is being worked upon. “The financial model has to be agreed upon.
