MHF, FIH war steals limelight

11/03/2002

National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil for 13 days, there was another warthat was raging in the seminar rooms and the corridors of the officialhotel, the Kuala Lumpur Concorde. Germany only lost one match in the World Cup, 3-2 to Spain in the poolmatches, but the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) and the Asian HockeyFederation (AHF) received a severe beating from their parent body - theInternational Hockey Federation (FIH). The FIH demands grew steadily as the World Cup progressed but theirinput to make the pinnacle of world hockey as a more recognised event wasnegligible, and sometimes, non existent. One hockey official described their high-handedness in overseeing theWorld Cup as "slowly starving the goose that lays the golden egg." MHF took a weak stand by not attending the FIH awards for mostoutstanding and promising players 2001, and that is surely not enough ifthey are serious about calling for changes. FIH are changing the tournament rules, the number of teams and playersin the World Cup as and when they like, and since there is little or noopposition from anyone, they feel they are doing the right thing. But their short-sightedness is slowly killing the sport by scaring thedaylights out of sponsors. Then came the highly awaited AFH meeting, which was to be followed by apress conference, but the Pressmen were made to wait for three hoursbefore they found out that "the AHF secretary general (Tan Sri P.Alagendra) is too tired and has gone home to sleep, maybe he will call fora Press conference later." That was three days ago and since, the World Cup has ended, the localpress are still waiting while the foreign press corp has gone home. And by his action, he has aptly decribed what is happening to Asianhockey - Malaysia, India, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore andThailand are still sound asleep while the rest of the world are workingovertime to improve the sport. And the shocking thing is that an official who attended the AHF meetingsaid that they came out with some strong ideas to revive the game in thisregion, but are waiting for the right moment to make the announcement. Are they waiting for the FIH president Els van Breda Vriesman and hercommittee members to go home before making a statement? Anyway, it was reliably learnt that the AHF, fed-up that their playersare not receiving due recognition from the parent body, have decided tohave their own awards for the most talented and promising players fromthis year. "This way, we can reward Asian players who contributed immensely towardsthe sport while the FIH awards can nominate and select whoever they feeldeserve recognition," said the official. India lifted the Junior World Cup trophy, Argentina are the silvermedallists while Germany ended up with bronze. FIH shocked everybody bypicking a German as the most promising player. So the Asian award istimely. "We (AHF) have also decided to add another tournament to our calendarbecause we hardly get any invitation to play in tournaments organised inEurope," said the official. And, in the heated AHF meeting, it was also decided that FIH increasetheir sponsorship and marketing team because for the 2002 Kuala LumpurWorld Cup, not a single cent came from them and the MHF are stillstruggling to balance their books and by the look of things, they will endup in the red.jugjet@nstp.com.my (END)