If only the officials stop playing with the game

So finally we all know that the hockey World Cup begins next month. And that too in New Delhi! If we need to thank anyone for this vital piece of information that few of us were aware of — it is the ill-paid, agitating players.

Setting aside talk of it being the ‘national game’ and all, how many people really care for a sport that has KPS Gill as its most talked-about person since the great Dhyan Chand? “The point is not whether we care about hockey. We have to care about hockey. And the public reaction to the events of last week showed the emotional connect we share with the sport,” says former India captain Viren Rasquinha.

According to hockey historian and veteran journalist K Arumugam, the invisibility of the sport is a major hurdle. “The main problem is that it is not in the public consciousness. We need more people playing and watching the sport. Hardly any hockey matches are broadcast live,” he says.

Indeed, no live coverage means the sport struggles to find sponsors. Unfortunately for hockey, it figures more on the news channels than on sports channels. So even as India’s triumph at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup last year went unnoticed, everyone saw the players boycott the national camp, fighting for their rights. More negative publicity.

So why would the corporates sponsor a sport that is always embroiled in controversies, always in news for negative reasons?
Ad guru Prahlad Kakkar feels that if the image of the sport is improved, and the players win matches consistently, it can still be marketed successfully.

“Certainly hockey has the potential to be marketed. Remember what happened after Chak de India released? The whole country wanted to play hockey but unfortunately, at that time, the buzz was not backed by quality performances by our team,” Kakkar says.

It is not that hockey cannot be marketed. Euro Hockey League, started on the lines of the UEFA Champions League, turned out to be a marketing guru’s dream. Money flowed in, matches were shown live on TV during prime time, crowds poured into the stadiums to watch the matches, and hockey got a big boost in Europe. Taking a cue from it, the FIH (International Hockey Federation) is mulling a Club World Cup, hoping it would attract more eyeballs.

Pointing out the impact the Premier Hockey League (PHL) had, Rasquinha asserts that if a domestic tournament can draw such attention, international matches most certainly can. “What the PHL did here was amazing… it brought in the club culture, people started identifying with Maratha Warriors or Chandigarh Dynamos.

It was a well-planned tournament that augured well for the sport. Unfortunately, this, too, couldn’t survive the administrative mess.”
So what’s the solution? Australian coach Rick Charlesworth once said that a basic hurdle in marketing the sport is its complex rules. It is true that the sport needs to be made more spectator-friendly, and the international hockey federation is already working on it.

A few path-breaking changes are expected to be announced in a summit in New Delhi after the hockey World Cup. “In PHL, certain rules were tweaked, and those were a big hit with the audience,” says Arumugam.

PHL, being an entity of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), which was dissolved following India’s failure to qualify for the Beijing Games, had to be scrapped. But it is expected to be revived sometime this year or early next year once the hockey body is formally elected on February 7.

In fact, a lot will depend on how the new body approaches the sport. “The system needs to be professionalised. If that happens, everything will fall into place. The players will feel secure, corporates will show interest, and hopefully, good results will follow. But no one wants to witness again what happened last week. Let’s hope it’s the last negative thing we talk about Indian hockey,” says Kakkar. Yes. All we can do is hope…