Sports Minister M S Gill Tuesday said he would take action against corruption in the hockey federation as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) called an emergency meeting
NEW DELHI: Sports Minister M S Gill Tuesday said he would take action against corruption in the hockey federation as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) called an emergency meeting to discuss the fallout of a sting showing an official allegedly accepting money for including a player in the national team.
Strongly condemning the incident, the IOA called for a meeting Sunday to discuss corruption in the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).
Gill said that it was a sad incident and that he would take action.
Headlines Today channel in a sting operation Monday night showed IHF secretary general K. Jothikumaran accepting money to include an unnamed player in the national team for the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament in Malaysia next month.
Jothikumaran was shown agreeing to include the player on insistence of some people whose faces were not shown on camera.
The channel showed Jothikumaran talking to its undercover investigating team in a five-star hotel in Delhi.
Jothikumaran was shown receiving Rs.200,000 in cash and then asking for Rs.300,000 more to be given to his "man" in New Delhi in return of the favour. The channel claimed that the money was handed over to him in a hotel here in two instalments April 10 and 11.
"The IOA strongly condemns the alleged incident of Jothikumaran. An emergent meeting of the executive committee of IOA has been convened at 3 p.m. on Sunday to look into this matter and take necessary action in the interest of sports," IOA president Suresh Kalmadi said here.
Kalmadi said that he would also try to meet the sports minister.
The sting operation comes just a month after the Indian men's team failed to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in 80 years. India, which has won eight Olympic gold medals, failed to win a qualifying tournament in Chile last month and failed to make it to Beijing 2008.
IHF president K.P.S. Gill said on Tuesday: "I will not say anything at this moment. I will call a press conference in two-three days."
Significantly, the International Hockey Federation has provisionally allotted the 2010 World Cup to Delhi. It remains to be seen if the fate of the World Cup would be affected by this exposé.
The sting operation showed Jothikumaran taking the channel's investigation team members to K P S. Gill's Delhi residence and also the face of the IHF president talking animatedly. But there was no sound accompanying the pictures of Gill.
The channel also aired transcripts of a telephone conversation in which Jothikumaran is heard promising the caller that he would try to get the player included in the senior India team.
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