All the 22 members of Indian hockey team did not attend the training session in the morning of Monday, the 11th January.
Showing a striking solidarity, all the members are staying away from the practice as they were not happy with the outcome of their disscussion with Hockey India officials on Saturday.
Indian hockey players seemed not to give up their fight. According to thier spokesman Prabhjot Singh, they have informed the Hockey India about their decision to continue their strike till some solid progress is made. It seems whatever Rajpal Singh told the media after the meeting in Delhi is not the view of the whole team, and he had to go by the majority view which was obtained after the six players returned to Pune in the afternoon of Sunday.
This decision surprised the Hockey India officials who thought they solved the problem with just mere assuaging words.
Worried chief coach Jose Brasa said, “somebody from, as you say in Hindi, ‘upar’ has to talk to them”.
Hockey India yesterday night sent a low level official from State unit, a local resident, to talk to players, the meeting went on late midnight without breaking any new ground.
Arjun Halappa, Prabhjot Singh, Adrian D’Souza, Rajpal Singh and others openly appeared on various television channels expressing the reasons for their reversal of stand.
The Maharashtra official who tried to broker peace last night told a television channel that the players request was about Rs. 3-4 lac per head, and paying Rs 70-75 lac should not be a problem for Hockey India (we doubt this is the offical view) but, he hastened to add, it should not be demanded on ‘gunpoint’, as the World Cup is important.
Top Hockey India officials are busy in the capital with the visiting FIH Election Obserer Ondarzo.
This is a developing situation and we will try to bring the latest as and when new info available.