MUMBAI: The prince-and-pauper analogy would aptly describe the wide disparity that exists between India’s top cricketers and hockey players and the comparison does not pertain just to the pay packet and incentives. This is not to suggest that one thrives at the cost of the other.
Does it ever happen anywhere that those who have had the distinction of bringing the greatest Olympic glory to the nation over the years, eight titles to be precise, should today decide to agitate for their just dues. With only six weeks to go for the start of the World Cup in New Delhi, the 20-odd probables that would make up the Indian challenge have gone on strike at the training camp.
This is something that has never happened in the annals of Indian sports. But the frustrated players had lost their patience when the promised incentives for the whole of 2009 were not paid by a new dispensation that is all set to take over from the original Indian Hockey Federation. The volcano has erupted now, but the lava has been simmering and churning within for long.
There is so much that is flawed with the way Indian hockey has been run for years that a full catalog would run into pages and would appear out of place jeer. Suffice it to say that the importance of the players has always been ignored. The lack of success in recent years has made their plight even worse. The refusal to pay allowances and victory bonuses has turned out to be a catalyst for the unprecedented agitation.
No one can condone the players’ protest and the rather drastic form that it has taken. One could even go to the extent of dubbing it as gross indiscipline. But some amount of sympathy ought to go to the players, as in today’s world of sponsorship, what is due to the players has to be paid. How can the administration say that it has no money? From sponsorship deals, it is gathered that a part of the amount has to be paid to the players, who wear the sponsors’ logo.
Apart from the player’s woes, the new body that it is to replace the erstwhile Indian Hockey Federation is still not in place. There are glitches galore in its setting up. The units that are to be granted affiliation is far from finalized and the disagreement are growing.
The proposed new regime is unnecessarily making a fetish of the old dictum of one-state-one-association. This has led to the Mumbai Hockey Association being disaffiliated. How can an important unit as Mumbai ever be pushed out?
A founder member of the now defunct Indian Hockey Federation, Mumbai, has had an important role to play in the development of the game in the country. After Punjab, it is Mumbai that has given the highest number of players to the Indian team. If any serious and first-class hockey is played in the whole of Maharashtra, it is only in Mumbai.
Indian hockey is in a terrible mess at the moment. Those who had been hoping of a return to the golden era are now praying for its very survival.
