Just adjacent to where the big boys of Indian hockey are having their camp prior to Asian Games, some young guns are trying their hand in the Nehru Hockey Tournament considered to be a stepping-stone to the big league. But despite attracting hundreds of teams from far flung areas like Gumla, Rourkela, Sundergarh, Khunti and having brought to fore talents like Dilip Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey, Gaganjeet Singh and Arjun Halappa over the years, the only organized tournament at this level faces a lot of problems.
One of the major hindrances in its way is the lack of funds. ONGC only looks like being an active sponsor and from what we hear the lucre coming from there also is on a decline spree.
“We get sponsorships from some government agencies and also from the Government of India. ONGC is our main sponsor. But these grants are not enough. We have asked the ministry for higher grants, considering that the expenses have been rising on a yearly basis and a tournament like this sees an expenditure of around 40-50 lakhs every year. As society members and organizers, we run behind sponsors. Sometimes it looks like we are begging but what to do, we need to run this nursery of Indian hockey going and we will do all it takes to run it,” says Kukku Walia, the technical director of the society.
Considering that for a sub-junior tournament, there are 28 teams that arrive to the capital from all parts of the country -- which means boarding, lodging, food and transportation (even if it’s very reasonable) of 560 athletes alongside officials and also the prize money for it -- the expenses that Kukoo Walia speaks of do not look unrealistic.
Apart from the financial difficulties, there are difficulties of getting experienced, knowledgeable staff for conducting the tournament in a fair manner. Sitting at the stands and seeing a few of the referees, one can easily understand that the ability and capability is nowhere close to what it should be to look like professional hockey being played. A lot of carried and fouls were missed out by the referees during the matches.
“I do often take classes and get many experienced people to talk to the staff about the changing rules of the games so that they can be made aware of the latest rules and regulations. We hold sessions almost every day and sometimes we show them clips of big tournaments on the large screen to make them aware of things. We need to understand that all of these also include financial assistance,” says the technical director.
Another problem that has plagued a tournament like Nehru Hockey is the problem of over age players coming in through some doctored certificates made at their native states. This though is something very chronic and looks like not many have answer to this.
“This is a very chronic problem in our country. The principals and the coaches verify the ages and things can easily be changed in the tribal areas where getting back to verify will take a lot of doing. We have a medical team for this specific purpose but let me be honest; no doctor can exactly pinpoint a player’s age. Probably only an X-Ray can rightly tell us about the age of a person but that will take 2-3 days and a tournament of this magnitude with so many teams and with a deadline of finishing it within 8-10 days, we cannot defer for waiting for a report. I have heard central government is working on a scheme to control this problem and hopefully in 2-3 years, things would look good in the matter,” he continued.
At a time when expenses are so high, state government provide only Rs. 150 per-athlete-per-day towards all their expenditure. It mostly thus boils down to finding sponsors for tournaments like these and money though may not be the only driver, but still in most cases is the rejuvenating factor to turn things around. To look optimist at the end, one can feel that if more passionate people associate themselves with the game, the country still has enough corporates to push some energy back in the arena of the national game.
By Rohit Sakunia
