Hockey ‘rebels’ may be pardoned
BANGALORE: Pargat Singh has an unenvious task next week when he plans to meet the five players who have been served show-cause notices by Hockey India. The players – Arjun Halappa, Sardar Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Adrian D’Souza and Sandeep Singh – who attended a promotional event of World Series Hockey in Mumbai last week without permission too have no qualms in meeting him as they feel they can defend themselves and their actions with conviction.
What Pargat plans to do as the chairman of Hockey India’s disciplinary panel is too early to say but as he had pointed to TOI, he would like to have a face-to-face meeting with the players instead of relying on “second or third hand information.” But the former India captain is likely to be influenced by the Union sports ministry’s viewpoint that the hockey fraternity needs to go easy on the boys, particularly at a time when both the federations had agreed upon on a new working arrangement. However, even if he accedes to it, Pargat wouldn’t want to lose the opportunity to impart his gyan about discipline, pained as he is by the transgressions of a few seniors in the national team.
By any yardstick, the ministry’s role seems critical in restoring sanity in the system at this juncture.
Soon after the meeting with Indian Hockey Federation and HI officials on Monday, which led to the formation of an administrative unit for the game in the country, ministry sources had stated that the players would be pardoned as that was the way forward. On Wednesday, the sources maintained that the boys would be let off, may be with a warning. “The boys will be pardoned. By issuing the notices, HI has only followed the procedure as the boys had disobeyed camp rules. However, they will not be punished, that is our understanding,” the sources said.