Last week Indian Women Hockey Federation convened first meeting of Advisory and Task Force meeting on improving women hockey in India. I was invited for the meeting. My suggestion include ways and means to increase number of competitions and teams in India, more publicity and others. The letter I submitted to the Prtesident, IWHF, during the meeting is reproduced here.

Agenda No.1 To find out ways and means to improve the women hockey in India.

‘Improve the women hockey’ means improving the profile of women hockey. A sport will acquire as much profile as its activities and the way these activities will be generated and organized. Activities are much less for women hockey to acquire any decent profile. International activity on Indian soils are rare, national level events tournaments too are meagre. It means this discipline of sport does not cater to public, or compete for space in the pubic mind, which leads to media negligence. Absence of media focus means poor publicity, without which a sport cannot financially be sustained. Hardly do sponsors come forward in such bleak and questionable scenario.

On policy level the IWHF should focus on increasing its activities manifold. Some suggestions in this respect:

To start with, organize Zonal Championships, which will culminate in an annual Cup Winners Cup, involving four winning Zonal teams. This will serve twin purpose of motivating State Hockey Associations to perform. Secondly, a new event always attracts good spectator and sponsor response. This concept is not to be confused or interfered with the Nationals.

Similarly, Zonal Winners of Inter-University competitions should also have another, new genre of competition on synthetic grounds in a metro city so that good publicity results and the girls acquire deserving publicity. Committed organizations such as Nehru or Surjit Society may help for this task.

It is appropriate for the IWHF to moot a Tribal Cup and host it in tribal heartland itself, with due publicity campaign and cash prizes. Note there are more girl players than boys in tribal areas.

A small target of 3-in-3 (3 Departmental teams in 3 Years) should be set. This can be done by persuading Oil, Banking, Airlines and other Sectors to form their teams. Competitive interest in women hockey does not exist in domestic circuit due to lack of competent teams. How long will the IWHF survive on just one departmental team (Railways), one community (the tribals of East) and one source of fund, the Government of India?

It is important for the IWHF to acquire a decent profile to be able to corner financial support from the private sources and make an impression in the media so that both will take them seriously. At present the IWHF counts nothing with corporate world and media. For that, the philosophy to be understood and followed should be: No sport can depend on media to popularise it. It never happened in any part of the world, more so in the hockey world. Press and Public flock to the active achievers. This is a simple fact. Exceptions apart, every National Federation in hockey manages their information on their own. Each National Federation publishes minimum two things. First, an official website. Second, an official magazine. Some even avail the services of professional Media persons (Media Officers). Publications (web or print) help to acquire an image among their National Olympic Committee, Fund Releasing Agencies (IWHF gets fund as a matter of right with the Central Govt. which is not the case in respect of most other countries), and significantly with the FIH. These publications project their sport to a wider audience, even global, bring publicity to its players and highlight their own achievements. Such things help the National Federations to successfully bid events too. So, the IWHF should start a website and a publication, preferably bimonthly newsletter or magazine. There should be a separate launching ceremony for each.

IWHF in particular can improve its standing among the National Federations and public at large by projecting players. Players are products and brands by themselves, so to say. If players are properly projected their sports will automatically get projected. Therefore, the IWHF should immediately introduce an award scheme by which `IWHF Player of the Year’ are selected in senior and junior categories every year. Thus the IWHF could acquire two events. First, to announce the shortlist and then the actual announcement of the winners, preferably by a star personality in a gala function. It is very easy to get sponsorship for such engagements, otherwise too these will not cost much. There are n number of scope for eliciting media interest in each step of such activity. If annual player specific award is introduced, the IWHF will be the first Asian Federation to do so. I am sure others will follow the IWHF’s footsteps.

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