When cat is not there rats will be at play. This is what is happening now. Devoid of any worthy leader who can have confidence of all sections, be genorous, and also without people of vision, Hockey India is biting more than what they can chew.
Some petty minds there are ill-advising not only Hockey India’s super boss Narinder Batra and significantly Sports Authority of India as well.
Now it seems while the Hockey India officials at personal level regret media not being allowed inside the stadium and also would like us to believe they are also not allowed there, what actually happens on the ground is different.
We go by what happens on the ground rather than what is being said (or fed) over phones when we call them.
On Wednesday, not only a few public were there in the stadium to witness the match between Indian team and the Combined Oil Sectors, but also the Hockey India bandwagaon of Narinder Batra, Rajeev Mehta, Jagbir Singh, Anupam, and a lone selector Zafar Iqbal.
It is also gathered a well-known Hindi television anchor was also present, and he was constantly in the company of one of the Directors of Hockey India.
So, now it transpires, after setting up player versus player (read captaincy issue), Hockey India is playing a dirty game of favouring hand picked journos.
A Sports Authority of India official also confided that the feedback from Hockey India is against journalists being allowed as of now.
“Did they ever communicate their publically stated position of allowing journalists, not at all” he said.
It is interesting at least a dozen public goes to stadium daily to watch the team practice, which means ‘no entry’ is only for journalists.
We don’t know exactly, but there is enough room for believing the double game of Hockey India. Regretfully, SAI is also proving to be spineless as they too fear media might expose their shortcomings.
We would have believed the theory of Hockey India had they brought Jose Brasa and Harendera for media interaction. Not doing that shows insincerity and a design to keep people they don’t like.
World over FIH is spending sleepless nights thinking how to bring media into hockey, but what happens in India now is not even expected in military ruled nations.