Hockey coach brings out new dossier for India Shining

New Delhi: Hockey coach Jose Manuel Brasa has worked out an elaborate plan for taking the game forward in India. He is in the process of discussing the details with top officials, who he hopes will implement his plan and give him more powers.

“I have discussed this with Hockey India (HI) officials Narendra Batra (secretary) and Anupam Ghulati (advisor). They are happy with my suggestions and have promised to try and make things work,” Brasa told the media with whom he shared a power-point presentation on Thursday.

“I am trying to set up a meeting with Sports Authority of India (SAI) officials in the next few days and hope to clarify the importance of the points that I have made,” he added.

In his presentation, Brasa tackled subjects like the importance of national championships and camps, the problem of over-age players, lack of communication between SAI and HI officials, significance of modern gadgets, the attitude of players and remunerations, among other things.

But the Spaniard stressed that he had not put forth any conditions even as he asked for more power, most notably the authority to select the team and captain. He also suggested that the support staff and allowances be decided by the coach.

“The system followed in India is an archaic one. Top hockey countries did away with selection committees for national team 50 years ago. The selectors are responsible for picking junior players and forming a pool of top players. Only the coach knows what is best for the team,” stressed Brasa, who had pitched for Prabhjot Singh as captain for the recent World Cup but the selectors named Rajpal Singh instead.

“My effort is to make the system better because here you have two bodies responsible for the same job. These are just suggestions. The rest is up to the officials. Certain things have to be tackled differently because you can’t take too long to take decisions in matters concerning international sport,” he said.

Brasa has gone into details like how to ensure better co-ordination between the sports ministry (and SAI) and HI, suggesting appointment of point persons from either side to sort things out.

But that might be easier said than done because the two bodies have pulled in different directions in the past.

In fact, the ministry has gone on record saying it does not intend to deal directly with the ad-hoc executive committee of HI and will do so via the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).