FIH lifts media ban

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Within hours of officially barring the media from entering the Dhyan Chand National Stadium, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) saw reason and made some concessions in the run-up to the World Cup starting on February 28.

Faced with mounting criticism for having denied entry to the media, ostensibly on security grounds, the FIH relented at the end of a meeting of the World Cup Co-ordination Commission chaired by President of the Indian Olympic Association Suresh Kalmadi on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended, among others, by Director-General, Sports Authority of India (SAI) Sayan Chatterjee, World Cup Tournament Director Ken Read, Hockey India Secretary-General Narinder Batra and Additional Commissioner of Police R.S. Krishnia.

A Hockey India release stated: “It (the meeting) discussed issues relating to media access to the National Stadium and decided that media accreditations would be completed by February 24 so that the accredited media could attend an interaction with the teams during practice at the National Stadium on February 25.”

The FIH had told another meeting on Monday of its decision to bar the media and on Tuesday issued a statement, “The teams have started to arrive… Training has commenced at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium. The FIH Tournament Director, Ken Read has determined that media access to training will not be possible until accreditations are active, which is expected to be on February 27.”

No certainty

There has been no certainty from the start about when the media accreditations would be ready, with February 26 being mentioned initially and then February 27 and now February 24.

Enquiries had revealed last week that media accreditations, at least those that were ready, were to be released only on February 26 or later.

There is no guarantee yet that all police verifications would be completed in time and all media accreditations would be available by Wednesday. The authorities seemed to have started the verification process rather late with several mediapersons being visited by the Police only last Sunday.

There was no certainty either whether the media would be allowed entry into the lounge of the team hotel on the strength of the accreditation card. It was allowed on Monday when the Pakistan team arrived.

Security review

The Commission meeting reviewed the security at the venue and it was happy with the robust on-ground arrangements to ensure that the World Cup would be played in a safe and secure environment.

The Commission also reviewed the sale of tickets and was happy to note that there had been a brisk sale. Tickets for the opening day that will feature the India-Pakistan match have been all but sold out.

There were, however, complaints from fans that tickets were not being made available at most of the outlets announced by the organisers.

Meanwhile, nine teams, including the host side, checked into the designated hotel by Tuesday. The teams that have arrived are Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada and Argentina. Spain, Germany and England are the other teams that will arrive over the next two days.