Privatize Indian hockey: Charlesworth

NEW DELHI: Lambasting the Sports Authority of India for the mess that Indian hockey has become, former Technical Advisor Ric Charlesworth on Tuesday claimed SAI never wanted to employ him and called for privatising the national game in order to bring back its lost glory.
    
Charlesworth described the country's administration as a "minefield" of bureaucrats and said their increasing interference in the sport was a worrying factor.
    
"Corporatise hockey in India, that's the best way to put in place a professional structure," Charlesworth said.
    
"Priorities in training programme should be decided by the coach and not by some bureaucrats. Three years ago I gave then IHF President KPS Gill a comprehensive programme, saying if you implement this India will rise by one spot yearly in the world rankings and by Beijing Olympics you will be placed world number 4, but unfortunately he never took it seriously.
    
"All the support staff of the team needs to have a proper contract," he said.
   
Charlesworth, who had left the country in a huff citing inadequate working and living facilities beside non-payment of his bills, returned to India to get his dues cleared from the SAI before leaving for Australia on Wednesday.
    
Charlesworth admitted that he was "disappointed" to leave the job.
    
"One good thing is that Indian media is interested in hockey and transparency to the media is very essential," he said.
    
Particularly critical about SAI's conduct with him, he feels it never wanted him to get involved with Indian hockey otherwise it would not have kept on deferring the date for signing his contract.
    
"I think its mischievous because there were some people who did not want my association with Indian hockey. I started to work in India from December but signed my contract only in March after the Chile debacle.
    
"SAI kept on deferring the date. Had Chile debacle not happened the contract signing wouldn't have materialised and I would have left earlier," he said.
    
Charlesworth was appointed by SAI on December 2007 but signed a contract only in March 2008 after India failed for first time to qualify for Olympic Games.
    
Charlesworth claimed that till now he had received only one payment from SAI and that too in June, six months after his formal appointment, adding that he was not certain about his pending arrears as the SAI officials are not responding to him.
    
"In March, I signed the contract only on the condition that all my arrears would be paid, but they paid me only an amount in June. They still owe me a lot of money but neither they are answering my mails nor calls.
    
"I don't know how will I recover my money but the Indian Olympic Association is talking with the SAI people in this matter."
    
Charlesworth, who was sent to India to revive hockey, said he would not submit all his assessment reports until he was paid his dues.
    
"The reports are the only basis on which I am bargaining with SAI. But I have submitted all my 10 reports to the FIH and till now I am sustaining on the money I received from them," Charlesworth said.
    
About his experience in the country, Charlesworth said he was aware about the hardships, but he still took up the assignment because it appealed to him as a challenge.
    
"I took up the India assignment as a challenge as I always knew it would be very difficult. But eventually it turned out to be even more difficult than I thought.
    
"I am disappointed to leave, but there was no point in staying as advisor when my suggestions were not accepted," a dejected Charleswoth said.
    
"My main problem was putting in place a proper programme. You need to have some continuity, you need to be structured. Whatever you do, you need to have a system in place which is sympathetic toward local people."
    
He said the main reason behind the decline of hockey in the subcontinent, especially in India and Pakistan, was that instead of working towards rectifying their mistakes, they try to put the blame across after a debacle.
    
"It is pretty clear now that India and Pakistan are out of top six. First thing they should do is to accept their mistakes and not make excuses and then go about rectifying the grey areas and that's why I was here."
    
"India still has more resources in the game than any other country by a long way, but the support for the game is sleeping and dying in some places. The hockey administrators now need to revive them," Charlesworth said.
    
Charlesworth is the front runner to take the charges of Australia senior men's team after fellow Barry Dancer's retirement.
    
The former New Zealand Cricket's high-performance manager also emphasised on the training modules of the players and said adaptation to the modern day techniques was essential to compete at the elite league.
    
"Training sessions in India needs to be upgraded. They were still adopting the techniques of 70's. They must realise that they will have to cater to scientific methods to compete with teams life Australia, Netherlands and Spain," said Charlseworth.
    
"You cannot coach on anecdotes, you need to have some reality, but here they don't have a library. When I went to Rotterdam with the women's team, I personally arranged for a video analyst but the SAI did not give the approval," he added.
    
Stressing that communicating with the players was a major problem during his stay here as most of them hardly knew English, he advocated the need for introducing English language course and computer training necessary for players in the camps.
    
"Productive English language lessons and computer training should be introduced in the camps which will not only benefit the players, but also develop them as individuals.
    
"I had a lot of problems in passing across my messages to the players, I even conducted a test in English but the result was very poor. So, I always wanted an interpretor to pass across my message to them in the correct manner," said the five-time Olympian.
    
Recounting his best experience in his nine-month long stint with Indian hockey, Charlesworth said it was getting access to the players during the Azlan Shah Cup.
    
"My best experience was working with the players. After interacting with them I understood that they want more. People should realise their potential."
    
Asked whether there is any possibility of returning to India, he said, "I love India, it's a fascinating country, but I don't know what will happen in future. What I know is that I am jobless right now."