Terry Tale: Contract to be reworked, many fringe benefits on the anvil?

The public outcry following the ‘resignation’ of Terry Walsh, Men’s hockey National chief coach, had its telling effect on the people who matters – the spender and provider of Indian sports viz Sports Authority of India – with, if implemented the amendments agreed upon yesterday by letter and spirit, the hope that the future management of elite area of not only hockey but all Olympic sports will transform to a professional way we all have been espousing for decades now.

Indian bureaucracy, which lives on delay and deny tactics so that it is never accountable nor answerable to anybody, does hardly crack as did so in the past 48 hours.

This is as a result of astute strategy of the coach, who may have taken valuable input from those who matter, with national television channels pitching in full throat on prime time, as never before.

Terry Walsh, uniquely positioned to take on anything and everything with the Asian Games gold striking a national chord, did silently achieve what vocal predecessor of him, Ric Charlesworth could not despite being more vocal.

All the demands Terry made while emailing his resignation, mostly are nothing but replica of what Ric wanted six summers ago.

He was brute and plain speaking, and unfortunately did not have the backing of parent body, the defunct Indian Hockey Federation.

Now that the SAI is willing to forgo its time-honoured ‘privilege’ of holding the funds and releasing it leisurely and lethargically, to the custody of Hockey India and that the way it should be spent is collective responsibility of Technical hands at Hockey India, despite future hurdles the wounded bureaucracy may create, augur well.

Hockey India, with about 20 staff on its pay rolls, now has enough infrastructure to handle travel (ticketing) and all other related matters, which may avoid usual bottlenecks of last minute clearances, last minute refusals, with it the ubiquitous ‘breaking news’ etc.

If words are to be believed, mark the words, SAI will not interfere in the modus operandi of government funds earmarked for hockey.

If this happens today for hockey, it will be good for it, provided the national body continues to live upto its professionalism; and will not interfere with technical think tank.

If this happens today for hockey, it will not take much time for other sports too.

Which in turn means the National Federations, most of them are ill-equipped and under-staffed, may also demand the same and the future may not be easy one.

Whatever, if the funds are transferred as is promised, and the Performance Director is going to manage it the way the needs of the team demand, and if HI and the technical hands can usher in the change without hassles, it will be a pioneering effort, and will set trend for how every other sports had to be managed.

Hockey, which gave identity to Indian Olympic Movement, now has taken upon itself the onerous task, and the nation expects it to live upto the task.

If successful today with hockey, it will totally transform sports governance.

It is early to rejoice because a lot many loose ends are to be tied, and the experience shows that the bureaucracy never give up its rights and will circuitously tilt things so that nothing moves.

So, we need to wait and watch before expecting mutational changes, but at the moment we all can heave a sigh of relief, as coaching continuity is expected for hockey.

It though remains to be seen how the clauses of Terry’s contract will be worked out in a month’s time before it expires.

Most of the things announced yesterday in the press conference and hog headlines today are verbal in nature, and later every item can be subjected to different kind of interpretation a game our bureaucracy is well versed with.

While we can thank Indian media to engineer the coup, and the bold stand taken by Terry and the manner with which he went about explaining his reasons augur well for hockey, only time will tell whether talks, assurance and meetings will materialize into a desired action.