Not intimated by reputation, not here for money: Paul van Ass

In his brief stint as coach, outspoken Paul van Ass showed he was ready to take on hierarchy even at the cost of his job.

THE meeting didn’t follow the usual pattern. A day after India’s warm-up game against France ahead of the World League semifinals, Paul van Ass summoned the players and coaching staff to a tiny conference room of the team hotel in Antwerp. But it was hardly the drab, at times monotonous, sessions that players had expected.

After the routine post-mortem of the team’s performances, the Dutchman would lay down the laws for remainder of his tenure in India. “There’s a flight from Delhi to Holland every day. The moment I feel it’s not going the way it ideally should, I will sit on one of those and not return,” he is believed to have told the players. “Here, I roam around in an Indica. Back home, my Bentley is waiting for me in the garage.”

Now seeming a mere formality, Van Ass is set to become the fourth foreign coach to leave these shores feeling wronged by the system and a ‘dishonest’ federation. His predecessors Terry Walsh, Michael Nobbs, Jose Brasa and Ric Charlesworth have had similar experiences. Like Brazil in football, there is a certain degree of romance attached to Indian hockey, in terms of the mesmerizing style and rich history. The charm and challenge associated with it brought the likes of Charlesworth and Brasa to India. Of late, there’s another factor that has brought them to the subcontinent. India, in the last few years, has emerged as the financial nerve-centre of world hockey. Players, coaches, referees and even administrators world over have been quick to join the bandwagon.

And while trying to solve the unsolved mystery that Indian hockey is, the foreign coaches have not hesitated to make the extra buck (India has always been one of the highest-paying countries for foreign coaches). Among all the foreign coaches working in India, the hockey guys are paid the highest. Charlesworth, Walsh and current high performance director Roelant Oltmans have been associated with Hockey India League as well. Nobbs tried his luck but was denied by Hockey India and SAI, who said it will be conflict of interest. Brasa, too, was the coach of a World Series Hockey franchise. They tried to ‘learn the system’, often putting up with ridiculous demands and interferences of the administrators.

But Van Ass wasn’t here just for money. Nor would he allow the administrators to undermine his position. Mentally, he was always prepared to either quit or be sacked. “From day one, he had maintained he would not hesitate in taking on the officials even if it meant it would cost him his job,” a source says. Perhaps it stems from the fact that he does not depend on hockey for a living. Though one of the biggest names in hockey world, Van Ass has a background in business. “He had mentioned in the meeting that he works as a consultant for nearly a dozen companies and has stakes in a big business house,” the source adds. Primarily an entrepreneur, he took over an East Germany company, GMBH Media, in 1992 when it virtually had no market share and had negative cash flows. After a year, he got the company to break even and since then, the cash flow has consistently grown. By 1998, it was among the 100 fastest growing companies named by Elsvier journal and in 2000, magazine Quote Net, named it as his group of companies in the 1000 largest corporations. While he was still in charge of GMBH, Van Ass was also elected as the president of Hockey Club HGC. The club was in turmoil, with the sponsors not renewing their contract. Van Ass got new financial backers and in 2006, he himself would later coach the team, which was on the verge of being relegated to the lower division of Dutch league. He had never coached a team before nor did he have coaching credentials. Van Ass, however, steered them to safety. The following season, he led them to championship final and a year later, they reached the Euro Hockey League final.

Such was the success story that the Dutch federation put him charge of the U-21 team and was soon elevated as the chief coach of the men’s team. Known for being outspoken, he publicly criticized two of Holland’s biggest players — Taeke Taekema and Teun de Noojier — and sacked them from the team. The decision was met with a huge public outcry but Van Ass couldn’t care less. In the meeting in that tiny conference room of the team hotel in Antwerp, Van Ass reminded the Indian players of that incident. “Taekema and Teun are the best players the game has seen. Still I dropped them because they were not good enough. So do not be under impression that I won’t drop you,” he is believed to have told them, shaking off complacency, if any. In return, he assured them he will ‘protect’ them. When he told Hockey India president Narinder Batra to leave the turf after the quarterfinals against Malaysia, Van Ass felt he was doing just that —protecting his players.

His equation with Batra — equally outspoken and controversial — was always going to be nasty. But every backyard can have just one bully. And Batra has shown this is his turf.

Chopping and Changing Coaches under KPS Gill: (17 from 1994 to 2008) Zafar Iqbal, Cedric D’Souza (twice), V Baskaran (five times), Pargat Singh, MK Kaushik, Harcharan Singh, CR Kumar, Rajinder Singh, Gerhard Rach, Jagbir Singh, Joaquim Carvalho, Ric Charlesworth (technical director).

Coaches under Narinder Batra: (five from 2010 to present) Jose Brasa, Harinder Singh, Michael Nobbs, Terry Walsh, Paul Van Ass Five: No. of months Paul van Ass was in charge of the Indian team, making it one of the shortest stints ever in the country.

Two: No. of tournaments India took part under Van Ass. They won bronze at Azlan Shah Cup and finished fourth at World League semifinals. Oltmans, the contender Dutchman Roelant Oltmans is the front-runner to be handed over the reign of the men’s team until Rio Olympics. With Van Ass’ return unlikely, Oltmans is seen as the best man to take charge. Sources said his proximity to the players and understanding of the scenario makes him the favourite and it would also save them to find a new coach with just a year to go for the Olympics. Oltmans has served as the interim coach of the team once before, when he managed the dug-out during the Champions Trophy following the ouster of Terry Walsh.