Much to learn from Dutch

Prabhjot Singh writes from New Delhi

The Netherlands, Malaysia and India belong to a select band of nations who have had the privilege of holding the World Cup Hockey tournament more than once. Hosting a tournament of the prestige of World Cup not only gives its ardent fraternity an extended chance to watch the top notch in action but also acts as a catalyst in promoting and encouraging a new generation to take to the sport seriously.

The Netherlands is an example. It organised the second World Cup in 1973 and won the title. Since then it has never looked back. It again won the World Cup in Lahore in 1990 and then as a host again in Utrecht in 1998. Hockey has now become a passion for the Dutch. It has perhaps the largest number of hockey playfields, all with latest version of synthetic pitches, and overwhelmingly large number of clubs and their members.

Both Malaysia and India, however, cannot emulate the Netherlands. Financial constraints may be one reason for these two Asian hockey giants to remain low in the international ranking ladder. Even the popularity of hockey has been unfortunately on the decline in both these countries.

After India organised the World Cup for the first time in 1982, it has never won a major FIH tournament. Its last major triumph has been the gold medal in truncated Moscow Olympic Games. I had a chance to cover the 1998 World Cup in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Everyday hundreds of youngsters, dressed in their playing uniform, would come not only to witness the games but also play some friendly games amongst themselves on adjoining playfields.

Further, the organisers had put up some exhibitions where latest hockey equipment was on display and sale. The organisers had also made sure that at the end of the day, these youngsters had enough to cheer about by organising music parties for them.

Also during free hours, exhibition matches featuring men-women mixed teams, seniors and special people were also organised. To be precise, they converted the World Cup into a hockey festival in an endeavour to keep everyone interested in the sport with its organisation.

However, here in India, it has been a different concept altogether. For some security concerns as well as for some other unknown reasons, organisers of the 2012 World Cup are not very keen for larger participation of both hockey enthusiasts and players in the successful conduct of the event. Except for some young trainees of the Punjab Sports Department, none of the trainees of various hockey academies could come here even if they wanted to come by buying tickets.

Tickets remained out of their grasp. On some days, the turnout at Major Dhyan Chand National Hockey Stadium renovated at a massive cost of Rs 266 crores has been in hundreds and not even a thousand. Did the public money was spent just to cater to the needs, interests or personal benefit of only a select few?

How does the Organising Committee as well as the Hockey India want to use this event as a lever to promote or revive hockey in the country? Malaysia has not done that badly as we do. They have a regular tournament – Azlan Shah- on annual basis where they invite top teams of the World.

Their position may have slightly improved but not come down drastically as is the case with India. Politics may be the reason that could be attributed for the failure of Malaysians to come up on international hockey horizons unlike both Korea and China, other two new Asian forces in world hockey.

Korea and China by organising the Olympics and other major tournaments have relegated both India and Pakistan far behind both in men and women sections. After all they have reaped benefits of hosting the major hockey events. It is time for India to draw a leaf from the books of the Netherlands, China and Korea. Otherwise, hockey will be history