Indian’s Women Hockey Federation has merged with Indian Hockey Federation today. The government has asked IHF to join with IWHF and take control of hockey affairs in India. MoS had also asked FIH to give the status of NSF to IHF.
KPS is back |
IHF has still not got permission from FIH as they still consider HI as the sole representative of hockey. In order to form the democratic body, IHF will hold its elections in October.
But the way for IHF is not clear as in a letter by FIH, it is nor ready to recognize IHF as the representative. It says that it had de-recognized IHF in the year 2000 for not following the guideline of merging of both men’s and women’s federation.
This move of FIH has created problems between FIH and MoS. Also FIH should be questioned on what were they doing from the period of 2000 to 2008? If they had de-recognized IHF why were Indian team allowed to participate? India featured in 2004 Olympics,WC and Champions Trophy, in which FIH has full power. So, if Indian Hockey Federation had been de-recognized then the team should not have been allowed to participate.
According to me, this is just a pure publicity stunt in which FIH wants to show its power. But, in reality it does not have any power. It is just a mere spectator which sometimes acts as a puppet of European teams.
With women’s team preparing for the World Cup and CWG coming up, FIH decision to ban Indian team will not go well. And for another reason they cannot ban the Indian team is the revenues. The commercial success of WC has opened the eyes of FIH and banning the team will lose them lots of money. FIH is in dilemma about what step should it take in future that will generate revenues and even show their strength. Now, it is time to waif for FIH’s decision on this story. I hope the decision is good for Indian hockey…..