IHF gets 21-day grace period

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) has been given 21 days to submit fresh proposals to untangle the hockey mess that has threatened to jeopardise India’s Olympic qualification chances.

At a meeting convened by the Union Sports Ministry here on Friday to resolve the issue of hockey administration in the country, the IHF brought forward a few proposals for discussions.

It was agreed that the IHF would finalise its list of proposals within three weeks and along with any proposal that Hockey India (IOA) might be having, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) would come up with a solution.

The IOA was represented, for the first time in a ministry-convened hockey meeting by R.K. Anand.

The IHF team included K.P.S. Gill and its president, R.K. Shetty while the HI delegation was represented among others by its secretary-general Narinder Batra. The ministry side was led by the Joint Secretary, Rahul Bhatnagar.

Like in its earlier stand, the IHF has proposed that a new body could be formed with the president from HI and secretary from IHF or vice versa. The international federation (FIH) had objection to a joint chairman of any body that could come up under the compromise arrangement.

It is learnt that HI informed the meeting that it had to reply to FIH by November 1 about a possible solution to the impasse failing which there was every possibility of the Olympic qualifiers being taken away from India.

The FIH had also threatened that India’s Olympic participation could be in doubt if uncertainty persisted in the functioning of the National federation. The FIH recognises HI as the sole hockey administration in India.

The IHF also raised the matter of accounts for the World Cup tournament held here last year.

The ministry made it clear at the meeting that if the issue was not settled then it would be left with no choice but to place all the facts before the Supreme Court and leave the matter to the court.