Hockey camp to begin tomorrow after issue resolved

The ministry,on its part,said that it was HI which had changed the dates of the camp in order to scuttle the World Series Hockey,an IHF inititiave.

Hockey India Secretary Narinder Batra said the camp will begin tomorrow and the Ministry has also approved hockey’s Long Term Development Programme (LTDP) till Olympics.

“The camp will begin in Bangalore tomorrow. We have also got approval on LTDP from the Sports Ministry,” Batra told reporters after a Steering Committee meeting of the Ministry.

The training camp was scheduled to start at the SAI centre in Bangalore from today but HI sources had said that the Sports Ministry had not yet approved it.

A Sports Ministry source then had stated that HI had decided to organise the first phase of the national camp,leading up to London Olympics,from March 13 to April 27.

“The previous plan was to have the camp in Bangalore from March 13 but Hockey India changed it with malafide intentions so that those Indian players who were with WSH do not join it,” a Sports Ministry source said.

“After everything was finalised,it was Batra who wrote a letter to us just a day after India qualified for the Olympics that the national camp be allowed to begin from March 5 with the fringe players taking part in it,” the source said.

“The 18 players who were part of the team which beat France in the final of the Olympic qualifiers were to join on March 15 and the camp was to start with the remaining 30 fringe players,” the source had added. However,Batra refused to go into these details.

“I don’t want to go into those details now. The good thing is that the camp is begining from tomorrow.”

When asked if action will be taken against those players,who are competing in the unsanctioned WSH,Batra again chose not to comment.

“I don’t want to say anything on that. Let the camp begin tomorrow and see who are the players who report to the camp”,he said.

Batra also claimed that they have got a green signal on Indian team’s proposed tour to Pakistan but it will be finalised only after geting the approval of other Ministries.

“In principle we have got the permission,but we are yet to get permission from the Home and External Affairs ministry,” he said.

Batra also informed that HI will put forward a proposal tomorrow to get a foreign coach and trainer for India’s women hockey team.