Noticing the success of the two seasons of Hockey India league (HIl) in India since 2013, International Hockey Federation (FIH) is planning to host a league similar to HIl in Europe. Disclosing this information, FIH president leandro Negre, during an interaction with the Press at Ranchi on Saturday said that a professional league is expected to happen in Europe named EHIl.
“India and Australia are not capable in hosting such a high level full time professional league. As of now this is just a thought. We are yet to give this plan a concrete shape,” he said. FIH and Hockey India officials were conducting a meeting since Friday on various aspects of Hockey. The list of officials included Negre, FIH CEO Kelly Fairweather, HI Secretary General Narinder Batra and Head of Sports Business, STAR India Nitin Kukreja.
According to Negre, FIH and STAR India, which runs India’s leading sports network STAR Sports, have signed an eight year strategic partnership to improve the production of international hockey broadcast and extend hockey’s reach worldwide. The ground-breaking deal will run from January 2015 to December 2022. As part of the deal, STAR Sports has acquired global media rights for all territories, excluding Argentina. Through its network of international affiliates and other national broadcasters, content will be distributed to over 200 countries, reaching billions of sports fans taking hockey’s global viewing audience to unprecedented levels.
Negre mentioned, “This partnership is an incredibly important and exciting development for international hockey. It will lessen our funding dependency on IOC. Our vision is to entertain and inspire a global movement of hockey fans and players and STAR Sports is an industry leader when it comes to significantly increasing the reach and popularity of sport. Not only will STAR Sports promote hockey worldwide between Olympic Games’ cycles, which is incredibly important to sustaining interest in hockey, but it will make our sport much more interactive and entertaining.” Also, Negre gave a hint on increasing franchisee teams from six in the upcoming HIls.