Recently, a national daily brought out an news item on Bob Davidzon’s Report on ‘Promoting Indian Hockey’. This daily sought to analyse Indian Hockey Federation’s financial matters through the prism of Bob’s report. However, Davidzon has thought it fit to offer a clarification, which is reproduced below:

There is international concern that India will have problems to return to the summit of hockey , hence the Indian Olympic Association and the International Hockey Federation have offered the Indian Hockey Confederation ( including the Indian Women Hockey Federation and the Indian Hockey Federation ) to help them with composing a longer term strategic plan and once accepted to work out the short term operational plans .

Based on documentation and over 40 interviews/meetings with a wide variety of stakeholders a confidential report was submitted mid November 2006, indicating 14 area’s of concern (such as national teams, functioning of the Federations, coaching, youth development , marketing, finance, communication) without giving any weight of importance as your article suggests.

Under these headings “ points for (re) consideration” were mentioned again without going into any detail as your article suggests.

Although the contents of this report were not always “flattering” ( to put it nicely ) the office bearers of the federations have had the courage to circulate the report to and discuss the contents with its members. A step that should be appreciated !!

The office bearers – after some hesitation – are now fully co-operative in the further execution of the plan .
With the wider circulation it is not surprising that the confidential report is now also in the hands of other people that show an interest in hockey and I don’t mind.
However if those people want to participate in revitalising hockey in India they should deal with the report in the spirit of what it is written for and not link it with ( in this case financial information from unidentified sources ) over which I have no control .
I have simply indicated “area’s of concern” and if they turn out to be irrelevant, so be it and otherwise they will change into “ areas for improvement “ and the international hockey community will help where it can .
It may also be of interest to your readers to know that in the meantime for 5 of the area’s of concern draft strategic reports have already been presented to the Federations as well as more detailed material for support to your National teams. But there is still a lot of work to do !!

I sincerely hope that the Indian Express will give us some time to develop the project further and on future occasions will check the relevance of statements made by others with me before linking them to this project .

Bob Davidzon

Project leader “ Promoting Indian Hockey “