Merger to top HI agenda

Firoz Mirza, Hindustan Times

With its top brass converging in Bhopal to watch the final of the Senior National Hockey Championship, Hockey India (HI) has decided to utilise the opportunity to build consensus on some contentious issues. The executive committee is scheduled to meet here on Sunday, ahead of the final. Around 20 members, including secretary-general Narinder Batra, president Mariamma Koshi, newly appointed HI chief executive officer, Elena Norman, and executive director Anupam Gulati are expected to attend the meeting.
“As a majority of the executive committee members will be in the city to witness the hockey final, we decided to call a meeting to discuss some issues,” Gulati said.

He said that a specific agenda had been decided and general issues related to promotion and development of hockey in India would be discussed. Hockey India wants to promote the sport in the country by organising top-tier events.

With the government giving its nod to the hosting of the Champions Trophy in December and the Olympic qualifiers in February 2012, HI top brass will discuss the modalities for the two mega-events. Though the hosting rights were awarded to Hockey India early this year, they had to wait for the government nod because of the dispute with the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).

Though, Gulati looked reluctant to divulge the agenda of Sunday’s meeting, sources claimed that the matter of merger with IHF would come up for discussion and HI may consider some compromise formula in case the IHF rejects the sports ministry proposal of seat-sharing in the unified body’s executive committee.

The newly proposed two-tier format for National Championships may also come up for discussion. HI will also have to decide on the men’s camp for the Asian Champions Trophy in China in September as the SAI South Centre, Bangalore has expressed its inability to host the men because of paucity of space. The camp may now be shifted to Patiala. The women’s camp will be held at Bhopal.