Els: Hockey facing uphill mass appeal battle

21/10/2001

Sunday Chat in Hobart

FIH president Els van Breda Vriesman feels that hockey will always remain
in the shadows of soccer, tennis, golf, cricket and rugby as far as fan
support and television coverage is concerned, but she is determined to
make it a more people and budget friendly sport.
Els was in Hobart for the Junior World Cup and spoke to Timesport's
Jugjet Singh on the future of hockey.
Timesport: FIH have named 2001 as the Year Of The Youth and there have
been elaborate programmes all over the world ending with the Junior World
Cup in Hobart. With the declining standard of hockey in Asia and Asean, is
there really a reason to celebrate?
Els: After the artificial pitch was introduced, there has been a steady
decline in India and Pakistan, the traditional powerhouses, but we are
working to check the slide. Pakistan did not qualify for the junior world
cup for the fist time since 1979, but the Indian side have made the final
again and attracted a bigger turnout than when hosts Australia were
playing.
In Japan and Hong Kong, the structure of hockey is killing the sport
because it is actively played at club and university level but playing at
national level does not attract them. South Korea have improved much
because they have a very good hockey federation that works hard to get
national players, but the pool of players they have is very small.
As for the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei and
Singapore, hockey is not a popular sport and even though the FIH, through
their respective hockey federations, have been giving them a lot of help,
the sport just refuses to take off in a big way.
Q: Are there any plans to make hockey more interesting to the masses,
especially television audiences, like the seven point format introduced by
the International Badminton Federation?
A: We have done all that we can to make it more interesting to the
public like introducing the no offside rule so that there will be a better
flow with minimal interferance from the umpires. But still the game has
not caught up with the TV audience and most countries are finding it
harder to source for sponsors to foot their development programmes.
Q: So what is the FIH doing about it, because if money dries up, the
sport is going to suffer, like the Australian team are experiencing now.
Before the 2001 Sydney Olympics they had money to throw, but now they are
struggling to keep their development programmes alive.
A: After compiling statistics in the 2002 World Cup qualifiers in
Edinburgh recently and the Junior World Cup in Hobart, we found out that
most major television stations and wire services are slowly shying away
from the sport. So, the FIH technical committee will meet in November to
discuss what can be done to bring them back and bring the sport to the
public. Among one of the suggestions is for the FIH to set up its own
television station and to sell matches of major tournaments, live or
recorded, to interested countries and get better mileage. We hope the
sponsors will come in more openly after that.
Q: What have the FIH been doing to upgrade the standard of coaching in
the Asean region so that they can stop relying on foreigners?
A: We can't do much unless the respective hockey federations send in a
proposal for us to study and follow up. Right now, we have received a
four-year coaching plan from the Philippines and it is quite elaborate so
we are still studying it to check on its feasibility. Once that is done,
we will get back to them. Malaysia have quite a number of interested
candidates who have been following our courses keenly and in a few years'
time, they should have a pool of international calibre coaches there.
Q: Other than the Olympics and the World Cup, which comes every four
years, don't you think that hockey is suffering because it has only a few
big tournaments in between?
A: As a matter of fact, the FIH feel that we have far too many
tournaments on our calendar and are looking into cutting down on some of
them when the hockey calendar starts in the year 2003. This year we
organised eight tournaments and next year there is the World Cup in Kuala
Lumpur in February. Some of the countries have been having problems
sourcing for sponsors and keeping up their development programmes to
qualify for the tournaments.
Q: You are talking about trimming down the FIH calendar, but don't you
have an indoor hockey tournament lined up in 2003 in Germany?
A: Yes, but it is just an experiment to see how popular the sport is
when played indoors. If it picks up, the countries which have seasons
which prevent it from playing hockey all year round, will benefit from the
tournament.
(END)