Friday, March 28, 2008
How to treat your guest? IHF shows the way
How do you treat your guest?
If you do not know, then follow in the footsteps of the Indian Hockey Federation.
Ric Charlesworth is one of the legends of the game with the experience of five Olympics and coaching the Australian women's team to two Olympic golds. Besides, he is a doctor and a former domestic cricketer of Western Australia. Moreover, he was a High Performance Manager with New Zealand Cricket, an ex-MP and a motivational speaker.
He was appointed as the Technical Advisor of Indian hockey. But the IHF snubbed him, treated him like an untouchable. He roamed around the country for four months to assess the situation.
Then, on the insistence of an insecure Joaquim Carvalho, the coach of the Indian team, the Aussie legend was not given a ticket to Chile to accompany the team for the Olympics qualifiers and was left stranded in Perth.
After India missed out on a berth in the Olympics for the first time in 80 years, the IHF started to lick its wounds and under the heavy media scrutiny finally gave a ticket to Charlesworth to come back to India.
But his plight was not over. He was stationed at Hotel Rajdoot -- a well-known shady joint in Delhi -- and was kept on tenterhooks by not being invited for a proper meeting for long hours.
The IHF preferred to talk to the Sports Ministry officials and unilaterally decided to keep Charlesworth away from the men's senior team. It was decided that he be given the charge of only the junior sides.
Later, when Charlesworth said no to the offer after learning the news from the media, IHF invited him to Gill's house after being "arm-twisted" by the International Hockey Federation (FIH).
And what did they provide him for conveyance? An old Maruti Omni, into which both Charlesworth and FIH's Bob Davidzon squeezed themselves to travel for the important meetings. It's an irony because a few comfortable vehicles were parked at Gill's house round the clock.
All this go on to show the mean attitude of the IHF towards a foreigner and above all a guest. At least, they should nurture the commonsense that they are representing the country and by such foolish acts they are only depicting a poor picture of India to the world.
[Posted by Y]
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