New Indian Express: New Chapter: FIH chief Batra reiterates desire to grow sport

By Madhav Agarwal

NEW DELHI: India is a country where only a select few sportspersons have made their presence felt globally, and fewer administrators have made a mark in the world, and went on to head sports bodies. Of course one can think of names like Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar and Shashank Manohar, who were at the helm of affairs at the International Cricket Council (ICC), and N Ramachandran, who is the current President of the World Squash Federation, but now there is one more addition to the list — Narinder Batra, who was elected as the president of the International Hockey Federation (FIH), in Dubai on Saturday.

Batra, who was associated with Hockey India (HI) since 2009, and was heading it since 2014, will be in charge of the FIH for the next four years. His appointment means that it will be the first time since the inception of FIH that a non-European will head the body. For a man who lives and breathes hockey, it will be just another challenge to lift the sport.

“It is no rocket science to predict my goals as FIH President. I just want to spread the game all across the world and make it bigger,” Batra told Express.

For starters, the new FIH boss has planned an unnamed series, wherein teams will participate in both home and away matches. This league will be for both men and women, and could start as early as 2018-19. “This league will be played across the world.

The matches will be held only on weekends, that would ensure greater viewership. For that we might have to scrap the Champions Trophy, but that is still not final,” he added.

High up on his priority list will be to lessen the disparity of the level of hockey between playing nations. “This has been a common observation that in men’s hockey teams with rank 1-6 are almost at par, and then the level drops. Same is with women. So my focus will be to increase the number of good teams to 25 so that there is always a competition as to who qualifies for World Cup and Olympics.”

As far as taking decisions for HI is concerned, Batra has made it clear that though he is still the president, he will not take any decisions pertaining to the Indian body and will pass on the baton to the new appointee. He also assured that the appointment of the HI boss shall be done in next 15-20 days. “There is a very dedicated team at the Hockey India. I trust their decisions completely.”

Till sometime back there was a cloud over Pakistan’s participation in the junior hockey World Cup, but they have confirmed participation. “Till now Pakistan is coming. The FIH cannot force the teams to start bilateral series. But in global events they are bound to play each other.”