New Delhi: Justifying their pullout from the International Hockey Federation’s (IHF) Pro League, Hockey India said Sunday, the event does not offer direct qualification to the Olympics and would have been detrimental to the chances of its women’s team.
The ambitious Pro League, set to kick-start in 2019, will only give the top four teams in both men’s and women’s a chance to compete in the Olympic qualifiers, an HI official has claimed. Currently the men are ranked sixth while the women are 13th.
“Let us make it clear that the Pro League will not give direct berths to top four teams in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It will only give the top four teams a chance to play in the Olympic qualifiers,” said an HI official here. “Our women’s team have no chance of qualifying in the top four, so we decided to pull out from the event.
“We have a better chance through the World League Round 1 and 2 so why to go the other way. Every nation had a chance to withdraw before July 17. So we decided to communicate our decision to them early,” he added.
The Pro League is the newest competition in the FIH calendar and is due to be launched in January 2019. The top nine men’s and women’s international teams will play each other on a home-and-away basis every weekend for six months from January to June.
HI also cited lack of clarity in the ranking system for the new league and alleged that the world body has an apparent bias towards European sides.
“We definitely were one of the strong supporters of the Pro League and vouched for it but it seems the FIH is only interested in giving importance to the European teams. Till date, the FIH is yet to declare the ranking points system as it has not been approved,” the official pointed out.
FIH regrets HI decision
Lausanne: The International Hockey Federation (FIH) confirmed India’s withdrawal from its ambitious Pro League. The FIH said Sunday it has ‘received confirmation from Hockey India’ that the country has pulled out of the tournament. “Whilst we regret Hockey India’s decision not to be involved in this exciting new global League, we have replacement teams available following an application process which was oversubscribed,” the FIH, headed by Narendra Batra, said in a statement.