ROURKELA: During his first detailed press conference after being elected as the president of the International Hockey Federation (FIH), Tayyab Ikram confirmed that the body is continuing to experiment with penalty corners.
Last year, the body had started a global consultation project into the future of the penalty corner to see if the existing rules needed to be tweaked to offer protection to players facing upto it (it can often lead to nasty injuries because of the speed at which the ball travels from the top of the D).
“First thing is the safety of the athletes,” Ikram said. “We are working on that. We are also going to start some experiments. Main thing is the high intensity and speed of the ball, how to give more time for defenders to react.”
He also said that the defunct Champions League, a blue-riband FIH event that was last held in 2016, could come back in some form of shape because there is an appetite. “There is an appetite for certain events,” Ikram, who congratulated the Odisha government for the World Cup, said. “There will be a consultation process.”
He also confirmed that Hockey India had tabled a proposal of sorts to conduct an international event. He spoke about it when it was put to him about the absence of invitational events. “That is true, the window is very congested. We have Sultan Azlan Shah and Johor Cup which is being continued.
We had a proposal from Hockey India about another tournament, even from the Odisha government.” While he didn’t specify the nature of the event, it could be that they are interested in having an annual invitational multi-nation event.
‘Birsa Munda Stadium largest in the world’
Rourkela: FIH president Tayyab Ikram on Sunday put to end all murmurs about the capacity of the newly-built Birsa Munda Stadium calling it the largest. “You do not have 21,800 seating capacity anywhere in the world,” he told mediapersons. Calling it a fantastic, smart infrastructure which provides commercial partners, broadcasters and more importantly, best-ever facilities to the athletes, he said, Birsa Munda Stadium offers top accessibility to the venue and field of play. “I have not seen such infrastructure, facilities for our top athletes,” said Ikram and thanked Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Odisha government for unconditional support to make the 15th edition of FIH Odisha Men’s Hockey World Cup a grand success.