Sports minister flays DD, channels for Asia Cup snub

New Delhi: With the ongoing Junior Asia Cup hockey tournament going largely unnoticed, a miffed Union sports minister MS Gill on Thursday lashed out at the public broadcaster Doordarshan for ignoring the event, while lamenting that the private channels too have got their priorities wrong.

Gill said though a large number of public wanted to see the ongoing eight-nation tournament in Hyderabad, Doordarshan hardly sounded interested because ‘it would not fill their coffers’. “I’m sorry to say that Doordarshan is not showing the tournament. I tried to resolve it but apparently failed because they wanted to make money out of it,” a dejected Gill said in an interview here on Thursday.

Reminding DD of its duties as the public broadcaster to telecast events of national interest, Gill said, “I certainly see the duty which DD should be discharging for Indian sports.They should not always be thinking of earning and earning,there is a limit to it.”

Gill was equally upset with the private channels for largely ignoring the event.

“I was very disappointed with what I saw last night in the major bulletins. There was this hard-fought match between India and Pakistan, which India won 3-1. But what did I find? The first story was about Sania Mirza losing in straight sets to a junior girl in Stanford in a minor tournament. Second story was Ronaldinho leaving Barcelona for AC Milan for $30 million perhaps. I want to ask what is the relevance of this news in a country where footballers don’t get their TA-DA in Santosh Trophy?” PTI