Hockey India refutes allegations made by Elena Norman, Janneke Schopman in a statement

Hockey India (HI) on Wednesday denied the allegations made by former women’s team head coach Janneke Schopman and outgoing CEO Elena Norman regarding a rift between two factions, one led by HI president Dilip Tirkey and another led by secretary general Bhola Nath Singh. Dilip and Bhola Nath Singh, in a joint statement, said that those allegations were not correct.

“Hockey India is an autonomous and professional body dedicated to the development of Indian Hockey. Our primary objective as an organisation has been and continues to remain the welfare and progress of the sport of Hockey and our athletes. In this spirit, our entire focus remains on growing our talent, ensuring all hosted events are conducted with utmost professionalism and our national teams are receiving the best support to support their performance on the global stage.

We will continue in this pursuit of excellence and rebuild the Women’s team with a fresh approach to providing the right infrastructure and training to enhance their performance. In addition to this, we are cognisant of this being an Olympic year and are dedicated to aide the National Men’s Team with the required support to stand on the podium yet again in the forthcoming Olympic Games in Paris this year.

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Recently there have been statements by outgoing officials published in the media, claiming that there are divisions within the organization. This is not correct. We remain united in working together, and as always in the best interest of the sport.

The Federation has treated the teams and all players equally with equal benefits and training facilities, including cash awards and monetary recognition that is at-par and is purely based on performance. We have built our ethos around equity and equal opportunities right from the grassroots levels across states as well as on a national level.

We now seek the ongoing support of ardent hockey fans to continue to back what is important - the teams and the players like they have always done in this important year. And we look forward to keep our entire focus on the task at hand.

Please see attached signed official letter by Hockey India President Dr Dilip Tirkey and Hockey India Secretary General Shri Bhola Nath Singh.”

In an interview with news agency PTI, Elena Norman had termed the work environment at HI as “suffocating” and that she had no option but to resign from the post. On 23 February, Schopman had resigned as the women’s team coach after claiming of inequal treatment by Hockey India.