Olympics Begin In
:
Days
:
Hours
:
Mins
 
Secs
Begin typing your search above and press return to search.

Hockey

Hockey India directs major changes, drops David John from World Cup Selection Committee

Hockey India directs major changes, drops David John from World Cup Selection Committee
X
By

Press Releases

Published: 3 Oct 2018 3:56 AM GMT
After the Hockey India elections recently, the initial reports suggested that newly elected President Mushtaq Ahmad was not very keen with the way High Performance Director had been taking care of things. Early this morning, news emerged that the the Hockey India President had now taken the decision to drop John from the World Cup Selection Committee for an alleged bias shown against senior players during interactions with the press. "I am not happy with David John commenting on individual players who played in Asian Games. As a matter of policy/principle we do not allow discussion on individual players in public domain and John by discussing that has broken all protocols," Mushtaque was quoted as saying by
PTI.
"Observing the bias of David John against few players of senior men's team, I have decided that John will not be a part of the senior men's selection committee for the World Cup. This is to ensure fairness in selection without any prior bias against anyone in anyone's mind," he further added. For the moment, it seems that John's job remains safe despite this being a major setback. The Australian's contract with Hockey India runs up to the 2020Olympics and no decision has been made on whether or not the contract will be allowed to run its complete course.
Also read: Three reasons why David John is not the right man for Indian hockey

The announcement came in the form of a letter that President Mushtaque wrote to his Secretary General Rajinder Singh asking for the change to be implemented. According to PTI's sources, it was also allegedly made clear that David John would not be a part of any selection committee henceforth. The massive change comes at the back of news that the Indian squad would be made to go through a major paradigm shift ahead of the World Cup to be held in Bhubaneshwar in the last weeks of November. It had been reported that most senior players would have been the ones implicated as they would have allegedly been dropped following a disappointing campaign at the Asian Games for the previous defending champions in the tournament.

Chaos before the Youth Olympics.

However, the radical new changes did not affect David John alone. Reports in the Indian Express also say that after spending a total of 13 months with the Junior team, coach Jude Felix has now been sidelined his position in the final moments along with his replacement David John's fall from grace. Apparently, Felix will be still traveling with the team in the lesser high-profile Sultan of Johor Cup but, as far as the Youth Olympics were concerned, he would not be taking up the mantle for coaching. As per the Indian Express, Felix, who is also a former coach of the Senior National Team had this to say, “I’ve taken it very badly. I was very shocked to know I wasn’t a part of the team. Utterly disappointed… because there was absolutely no communication. I was told only after he took my assistance in selecting the team,” With a few important tournaments still left in the year, the massive paradigm shift can either be good news or prove to be detrimental to the overall coordination and progress of the team. The decision regarding David John had been something that followers and observers of the game had been clamouring for for quite some time.
Next Story