As images of German hockey players cheering in unison, after winning gold, flashed in front of our television screens one could but help feel a sense of agony at India’s absence from the Games or for that matter the name of an Asian country in the top three.

Three medals may have dully compensated for the hockey team not being there at Beijing, but it does not restore 80 years of lost Olympic glory.

However, now that the Indian Olympic Association is at the helm of all hockey affairs in the country there seems to be little hope in revving the sport’s lost splendour. The IOA have formulated a road map to improve the state of the sport in India and its only a matter of time that those plans will be set into motion.

Sadly, at the other end of the spectrum there is a KPS Gill who is hell bent in ensuring that none of this ever gets implemented. One would have thought that after the International body, FIH, had accepted IOA as the sole body that will look after hockey in India, the likes of KPS Gill would have gone into hibernation.

But that does not seem to be the case after all. Now the suspended Indian hockey Federation president has called the annual general meeting of the dissolved body next month. In a letter which has come into the possession of Mail Today, the beleaguered former IHF president has asked all the affiliated unit of the suspended body to convene in New Delhi on September 17 for the AGM.

IHF has been operating from a rented place in South Patel Nagar in West Delhi and has not handed over the accounts and files to the ad hock committee. Gill also attended the Asian Hockey Federation Ccouncil meeting in Hyderabad in July as one of its elected vice-presidents.

The agenda for the IHF meeting are adoption of the reports of the Secretary General and Treasurer, adoption of accounts for 2005-06 to 2007-08, appointment of auditor, and nomination of representative on the IOA.

“Yes, we have called the AGM. We are fighting the supersession in court. We have called all the office-bearers and member to the AGM”, IHF office Secretary Narayanan said.

When Mail Today contacted Mohammad Aslam Khan, Convener of the IHF ad hockey committee said: ”Unofficially Gill can call a meeting whenever he likes. It is a free country and we can’t stop people form meeting”.

“It is bit too earl to say what action we will taken as we are not aware of the complete details but the fact that he is still sending out communiques on an IHF letterhead is wrong”.

Courtesy: Sandeep Narayanan, Mail Today