Indian hockey team’s head coach, Roelant Oltmans, was sacked on Saturday following a three-day meeting of the Hockey India High Performance and Development Committee.
Over 24 members attended the meeting, including Harbinder Singh, B.P Govinda, V. Baskaran, Thoiba Singh, Dr. A.B. Subbaiah, Dr. R.P Singh, Joydeep Kaur, Sardar Singh, P.R Sreejesh, Manpreet Singh, Roelant Oltmans, Jugraj Singh, Arjun Halappa, Hans Streeder, Scott Conway, David John, Elena Norman, Mariamma Koshy, Md. Mushtaque Ahmad Rajinder Singh, Tapan Das, Bhola Nath Singh, Firoz Ansari and Gyanendro Ningombam. They gave their inputs about the way forward for the Indian Men’s Team.
High-Performance director, David John, in the interim will take charge till a suitable replacement.
“The Committee was convened since we are collectively not satisfied with the Indian Men’s Hockey team’s performance in 2016 and 2017 and feels that wins in Asia can’t be a benchmark for success anymore. We need to show results beyond intent in key international tournaments where the sporadic success over the last two years is more incidental than deliberate. To make results a reality, we need to make hard decisions for the greater good of the future of Hockey in India. The current format of coaching was not showing results beyond a certain level. The Committee unanimously agreement that immediate action was required to be taken and while change may not always be comfortable it is essential if we want to position ourselves as a serious global contender for the upcoming critical tournaments in 2018 including the Asian Games & World Cup and 2020 Olympic Games,” said Harbinder Singh, chairman of the Hockey India Selection Committee.
