Stuart MacGill is an Australian cricketer who was perhaps unlucky to have play at the same time as the legendary Shane Warne. But the spinner is now trying to do his bit for hockey.
MacGill, a long-time friend of Australian legend Jamie Dwyer, is associated with the Hockey India League (HIL) as manager for Dwyer and other players. Though, MacGill refuses to call himself a manager for the players.
“I am helping them out with the contracts and the legal matters. Hockey players don’t really g around making the kind of money that cricketers do, and they are not used to handling thick legal contracts so often. Most, in fact almost all of them play hockey because they like to do so, they love the game, not because they make millions off it. I played hockey in childhood but I wasn’t too good at it. Jamie here has been a very good friend for more than 10 years and I am trying to help him out a bit,” MacGill told stick2hockey.com at the launch of the HIL logo on Tuesday.
But Jamie is not the only one. Though MacGill refused to name anyone else, he admitted there were many more. “By next week, I am hopeful of about a dozen more foreign players joining up the league. And they are not only Australians. I am looking after some Europeans and a couple of Kiwis too. Because I feel the main aim of this league is not to make money but develop and popularise hockey,” MacGill said.
The 41-year-old Australian also insisted that the fact the players would get an initial 3-year contract also gave them a sense of security. “As I said, hockey doesn’t really pay much. Most of these players have other regular jobs to sustain themselves. Now, they get a three-year contract to play in the HIL, which means besides playing hockey for these thee years – which they would have done anyways – they also have a second job for these three years. After that, it would depend on how things go on at that time.”
Invariably, there are comparisons with the IPL but MacGill tried to downplay them. “See, the IPL is good and everything but the players, those who are in it now, are mainly for the money and not the game. I know the idea is that if you have the best, you gotta pay them the best, but I think the money aspect is way over now in the IPL, I don’t think it’s right or even sustainable. Here, what they will get will be respectful but not over the top, and that’s the way I prefer it to be,” he said.
Note: This is first of the series ‘People in Hockey India League