KPS Gill Slams selection

03/05/08

NEW DELHI, May 2: Despite being suspended by the IOA, ousted IHF president KPS Gill on Friday took a potshot at the new selectors claiming that they had made some "cosmetic" changes to the team he had picked for Azlan Shah tournament beginning on May 8 in Malaysia.
Using the official letterhead of the erstwhile IHF, Gill listed the names of the 18 players announced on Friday by the new panel and said the Aslam Sher Khan-headed committee has changed only two players from the list submitted to the government by his regime.Gill said after a selection committee meeting on April 22, he had sent the names of 11 junior players and seven senior players to the government from which the new panel had substituted goalkeeper Mrinal Chaubey by senior goalkeeper Baljit Singh and Danish Mujtaba had been replaced by another senior player."We had selected 11 junior players and seven senior players from the team in Australia and now it is nine players from the (junior) camp and nine players from the senior team. It is just a cosmetic change. The two junior boys being dropped will mean less exposure to them, in view of the forthcoming Junior Asia Cup being held at Hyderabad in July 2008," the press release sent by Gill said.As he is no longer the head of IHF, Gill's statement came as a surprise and is being seen in the hockey fraternity as a show of defiance.RK Shetty was appointed by the new panel as manager for the tournament on Thursday but interestingly, Gill's list does not include him. Instead, Joaqium Carvalho, who was named observer of the team by the new panel was mentioned as observer-cum-manager by Gill in his list.Indian Olympic Association had sacked Gill on Monday by suspending the IHF and appointing an ad-hoc committee in its place.The "unanimous" decision to suspend IHF was taken at an emergency meeting of the IOA Executive Committee held here following the sting operation which caught secretary K Jothikumaran purportedly accepting bribe to select a player in the national team.The Executive Committee has empowered the IOA President Suresh Kalmadi to appoint the ad-hoc committee.
The Times of India