Gold Cup unlikely this year too

By Taus Rizvi | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

It seems that the 48th edition of the Mumbai Gold Cup hockey tournament, one of the biggest annual tournaments in the country and which is usually held in April and May, won’t see the light of the day this year too.

The Mumbai Hockey Association, which postponed it in 2010 by a year, won’t be hosting the tournament that attracts big teams like Air India, Mumbai Customs, Indian Oil, BSF (Jalandhar), Punjab & Sindh Bank etc. The reason being the management, which promised to lay the Astroturf at the Mahindra Stadium, has not even started the work.

The last edition of the Gold Cup was played in April 2009 at the Mahindra stadium. Forget the Gold Cup, even the Mumbai Hockey League’s Super and Senior Division matches were not played this year.

“We wanted to organise the Gold Cup, but unfortunately, we can’t play such a big tournament on this turf. We can’t risk injuries to the players. Our work on laying the new Astroturf will start soon. Once we are done with that we will play our tournaments,” said MHA president Manga Singh Bakshi.

“As far as the Gold Cup is concerned we are planning to organize the league after the rains because we can’t have it due to our Astroturf work,” he added,

Air India hockey team manager Vernon Lobo was not quite pleased with the way the MHA was running its affairs. “How can we have players from Mumbai if tournaments don’t take place? We have to look for players from outside. The local players will face job problems. Unless you don’t organise the tournaments, how will the companies recruit players?” said Lobo.

Lobo said a tournament such as Gold Cup attracts the cream of Indian hockey. “It will be Mumbai’s loss. It is one of the biggest tournaments in India where top teams play and I don’t think it should be avoided like that. We didn’t have Super Divison this time hence we had to go to Karnataka to play local league which is a shame,” he added. “We expected things to get better as now we have former players running the administration. They had even promised to put up a good show,” said Lobo.

Another cause of concern for MHA are the delay in getting sprinklers for the new Astroturf. “The sprinklers have arrived from Germany but they are stuck with the Customs. The duty is around Rs 3 lakh, however, we will approach the Central Government for tax exemption. Once it is cleared, we will start our work soon,” said MHA general secretary Gurbux Singh.