BHUBANESWAR: A top Hockey India official’s rude behaviour towards Indian captain and other members of the team has raised hackles even as the latter have tried to downplay the incident ahead of their crucial quarterfinal match.
Hockey India CEO Elena Norman had allegedly yelled at Indian captain Manpreet Singh and some other players of National team at the VIP lounge on Tuesday night. They were there to watch the crossover match between Canada and the Netherlands.
Singh, who was asked for his version on the encounter, tried to defuse the situation. “It was our mistake,” he said. “Players from all the teams are not allowed. We went there and it was a mistake on our part. It was not a big thing. I did not even remember about it when I woke up this morning.”
When pressed on the matter, he denied that he was accepting responsibility because of external pressure. “There is no pressure on me to say what I am saying. Nobody told me to say this. I have no personal issue with Elena. If I had my phone, I would have shown you. It’s been made into an issue. She is my colleague, we have good relations.”
It had threatened to snowball into a major controversy after a person, who witnessed Norman’s outburst, took to Facebook to describe what ensued between four members of the squad and the CEO.
“(...) she (Norman) looked agitated and walked right through (...) to Team India players Manpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh and Krishan Pathak. (...) a lot of others present were shocked to hear her abuse and berate the captain and other players using words like: ‘get out from here, how dare you come here, now just shut up and get out’.” Curiously enough, Singh neither denied nor confirmed that Norman had used those words.
Even if this was an unwelcome distraction, coach Harendra Singh said he had prepared all his charges well to deal with such situations.“ I have learnt from experience. As soon as I took over, I gave a chart to my players. I told them what they have to concentrate on and what has to be thrown out. We should not waste our time or energy on that.”HI is yet to issue an official communication on the matter.