THE Disciplinary Board only gave a stern warning to Faizal Shaari and Syamim Yusof for not attending national training with valid reasons, but the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) Executive board were hell-bent on sending out a message to laggards.
The MHC EB, which met yesterday, immediately endorsed a code of conduct which bars players referred to the DB for six months from national training.
"I was taken aback by the DB's decision to only hand a stern warning to Faizal and Syamin for skipping national training since October. The EB was of the same opinion and endorsed a proposal to ban players who are referred to the DB for six months.
"With this, the players code of conduct will see both the players out of national training for six months. We also took into consideration feed back from coaches Stephen van Huizen and Technical Director Terry Walsh that both the players will not be able to come back into the training squad at this juncture, because the other trainees are far ahead in their fitness training," said MHC president Datuk Seri Subahan Kamal.
Faizal and Syamin failed to answer national training call-up and will not be considered for the Azlan Shah Cup in April, but can still play with their clubs.
The MHC DB is chaired by Assistant Commissioner Datuk Adnan Abdullah, and its members are Datuk Arthur Edmonds, Datuk G. Vijayanathan and former national players Awtar Singh Grewal and R. Shanker.
Even though the senior and junior national teams do not have any major FIH international assignments next year, they will be playing in the Azlan Shah Cup, the Sultan of Johor Cup and the Asian Champions Trophy which Malaysia have placed a bid to host at the end of 2016.
