11 years 7 coaches for a team: Hockey India, What is your CEO doing?

Dear CEO of Hockey India, show us a nation in the whole world who changed the coaches like Hockey India? I bet you won’t be able to pinpoint a single country. Isn’t this your failure? Isn’t this embarrassing for you and your team? Don’t you feel you or your boss ego is hurting the whole nation? Don’t you feel the moral values? I think this the beginning of another black era which we saw under the KPS Gill before 2008.

Yes, we will not change our decision and we will always make our decisions without any consultation process. These are the memories when KPS Gill was president of the leading Hockey Authority of India, more than a decade ago. That was the time when the players humiliated and coaches fired and none of the responsible authority members of hockey body dares to face the media.

Now, under the Hockey India, it’s happening again and dear “CEO ” all of this is happening under your supervision or you blame your mystery boss somewhere in your mind and just worrying about securing your job? In 11 years Hockey India introduced and sacked or demotes 7 different Coaches and I would also like to say that, Hockey India actually invented the new ways of appointing and sacking the coaches of Indian Men’s National Team. Hockey is our Nation pride and under your supervision, it's fading away? Isn’t this shameful Hockey India? After KPS Gill the Hockey India CEO is the one who yelled out on the Indian Team Captain, again this is not something you can feel proud of, isn’t it?

Now see the timeline of seven coaches in the last 11 years.

1. Jose Brasa (May 2009 to November 2010)

2. Michael Nobbs (June 2011 to June 2013)

3. Terry Walsh (October 2013 to October 2014)

4. Paul van Ass (January 2015 to June 2015)

5. Roelant Oltmans (August 2015 to Sep 2017)

6. Sjoerd Marijne (Sep 2017 to May 2018)

7. Harendra Singh (May 2018 to January 2019)

I haven't counted on assistant coaches, it may be 15 plus in the last 10 years. Wow, what a strategy from Hockey India CEO or Development Committee. Just a shame...

Why sacking low or demoting is wrong for Harendra: Let’s discuss this. In the press release Hockey India try to fool the fans and also tried to give the positive feel to the fans by stating that “with the vision and emphasis on building a strong player based ahead of 2021 Junior World Cup and the 2020, 2024 Olympic Games, Hockey India High Performance and Development Committee met on Monday 7 January 2019. Basis their discussion the Committee has recommended to reassign Dronacharya Awardee Harendra Singh as the Coach for the Indian Junior Men’s Hockey Team”. Now the question is why not Hockey India still keeps Harendra as Chief Coach of Men’s National Team and asked Harendra for his recommendations to coach the Junior Team and they both can work together. 

Another question for the CEO, Isn’t this lack of common sense in your team or committee? They need to develop their skills in development planning for God sake. Now I will show you the performance of Harendra Singh. He is a much better coach than anyone in the last decade. In 1994 India finished the world cup campaign at number 5 and after that continually we failed to finish in top six of five world cups (1998 in the Netherlands, 2002 Malaysia, 2006 German, 2010 India, 2014 Netherlands). Under Harendra Singh we finished six after 24 Years. Now see his previous performance.

Is Hockey India doing favouritism? You saw the Harendra record and now compare it Sjreod. He never showcases any good results in any format and now the question to CEO is why Sjreod is still coaching any Indian side? Is he your favourite? Why Sjreod failure is not noticeable? Check out his performance and you can compare them and it will only draw one picture in your mind. Yes, looks like favouritism is happening, otherwise, there is no reason to keep the Sjreod.

I have tried to contact many officials of Hockey India, including the CEO but no answer (email copy attached below). I spend two weeks to document all the matches and now I can clearly see the picture. Harendra is performing much better than others and I am sure readers will agree. Leave your comments below.

We would love to listen and share the logic around “why Harendra Singh is IMPORTANT”. To conclude, I would like to urge Sports Minister Mr Rajyavardhan Rathore Ji, please intervene in this issue as we feel CEO is not performing and sidelined the top performing coach of Indian National Team. On the last note, I have also contacted the sports ministry to raise the same concern.

Hope for the best or we will keep asking the tough question to the dummies till they will give up. 

Amrinder Gidda