BHUBANESWAR hosted an extremely successful 2018 World Cup. It was deemed so successful that Hockey India, and the International Hockey Federation (FIH), decided to give the city (and Rourkela) the honour of hosting the next World Cup as well, at the beginning of 2023. While Hockey India (HI) has shown its organisation skills, some of the credit should also go to Hockey Odisha, a unit affiliated to HI.
But curiously, Hockey Odisha doesn’t even have voting right as it’s been made an associate member of late. Hockey Odisha’s secretary, Pratap Satapathy, has termed the move ‘unconstitutional’.
“For the development of hockey, the Odisha Hockey Association was formed in the year 1962. Subsequently, Hockey Odisha was formed in 2009. How we came down to associate member (status) is unconstitutional’.”
Satapathy says HI wants them to develop a proper website for better visibility.
“In our last general body meeting, we submitted our audited reports for the financial year 2019-20... but the national federation insists that we need to develop a website for better visibility and promotion of hockey. It’s under process. We adhere to the HI constitution. If making a website is the parameter to become a permanent member, then I want to say many present permanent members are not having websites nor do they have district units,” he added.
But Satapathy vowed to fight on, saying their primary concern is to nurture talent. “We are inspired by chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s call of ‘sports for the youth, youth for future’.
HI can change the nomenclature, but they cannot change our aim of developing players from the grassroots. In the current senior team, there are several players from our state.”
HI officials said there aren’t many differences between permanent and associate members. “The only difference is permanent members have voting right while associate members don’t have it.”