Brasa has been treated badly by India: Ric
V Narayan Swamy
GUANGZHOU: Australia coach Ric Charlesworth has sympathised with his India counterpart Jose Brasa, saying the Spaniard has been treated badly during his tenure.
“You are lucky that Jose is still willing to work there. He seems to have been treated pretty badly. Again I make the point that SAI and the administration seem to be big problems,” he told TOI.
“For example India had arranged to come to Australia after the Commonwealth Games and cancelled at the last moment. We had to change all our arrangements. I was never paid by India what was agreed upon and many of my expenses still remain outstanding.”
When asked whether Brasa needs to be given an extension as he got only about 18 months to work with the national team, Charlesworth said: “I won’t comment on Jose beyond saying that another change would mean starting all over again.” Brasa’s tenure ends on November 30. The Spaniard has already said that he would not go but expected that “someone will send me out”.
Charlesworth also said that he did not like the FIH’s qualification system which mandated that only the winners from the three designated tournaments would get berths in the Olympics. “Perhaps the first three teams in the FIH rankings should go into the Olympics and then the continental qualifiers and the hosts. The rest should play in one tournament for qualification. I am not a fan of ‘one-off’ qualification games,” he said.
“The problem for the qualifying tournaments comes when other highly ranked teams fall into those tournaments.”