Just over a fortnight after guiding the Indian hockey team to a historic Gold medal in the 17th Asian Games at Incheon, chief coach Terry Walsh has tendered his resignation citing “difficulty in adjusting” with the country’s “sporting bureaucracy” and over “pay dispute” with the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
Walsh had signed an annual contract which will officially expire on November 19. But owing to the good performance of the hockey team, his contract was expected to be extended for another one year.
Walsh’s resignation, submitted on Saturday, created a flutter in the hockey fraternity and triggered a blame game between Hockey India (HI) and SAI. While HI maintained that the pay dispute and suffocating bureaucracy had prompted Walsh to quit, SAI rubbished that claim, saying that the Australian had never complained of any financial issues.
In the resignation letter leaked to the media on Tuesday, the 60-year-old Australian said: “I hereby tender my resignation as the Chief Coach, Indian Men’s Hockey Team, effective as per the details of my contract or as agreed to by all concerned parties. I am finding considerable difficulty adjusting to the decision-making style of the sporting bureaucracy in India, which I believe, in the long term, is not in the best interests of Indian Hockey or it’s players.”
Under Walsh, India also won Silver at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. “In addition to my difficulties with not being able to professionally operate within these bureaucratic confines, I am not willing to continue with the constant time away from my family in Australia. My current commitment places too much stress on my personal life,” he added.
Soon after his resignation, Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that he was looking for a resolution of the issue and has sought a report from SAI within the next 24 hours. “It’s a serious issue. After learning about the development, I have passed on the instructions to SAI Director General and Secretary Sports to explain the cause of the resignation within 24 hours,” Sonowal said.
Walsh meanwhile is ready to reconsider his decision if he is given a new contract on his terms and conditions. It is learnt that Walsh and some other support staff were having issues with the Government over the Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) in their salaries.
“There is obviously the fatigue factor but I feel I just need to move away from the contents of what presently exists in my contractual arrangements. We are now looking at the possibility of how that can be reset,” Walsh added.“We are right now in a position of re-negotiations and see how it may or may not turn out. let’s see what happens. We have got a month to solve that,” he said.
Walsh said, unless there were changes in the way things work in India, it will be difficult to produce results in the 2016 Rio Olympics. “I believe there needs to be some changes and alterations in the way things operate for us to be able to really give a good shot in 2016. Without those changes I just can’t believe that we can go forward,” he said.
Jiji Thomson, SAI Director General, said he was surprised at Walsh’s decision. “We are in receipt of the resignation letter dated 19th October, 2014. We are extremely surprised and disappointed with the sudden resignation of Terry Walsh, one of the finest coaches in world hockey,” Thomson said in a release.
“…He has not even made any complaint about anything concerning Indian hockey. If Walsh has had any complaint about the functioning of SAI, he would very well come and discuss it with us,” Thomson added.
He said Walsh visited SAI office on Tuesday and met the officials. “Today, he made a visit to our office and had met Sudhir Setia, Executive Director (TEAMS) wherein he expressed anguish regarding working in a suffocating atmosphere in the Federation. We are totally unaware of what happened in Hockey India,” he added.
Thomson also denied that there were any issues over TDS and said the problem was created by Hockey India president Narinder Batra. He dismissed the issue as “canard” on the part of Batra.
“Walsh does not work under us, we only pay him $16,000 per month for his job and we have very little dealings with him on day-to-day basis. So, the sporting bureaucracy could be the HI also,” he said.
Batra said such a “disaster” was waiting to happen. “I could see this coming for quite some time. There have been issues; there have been frustrations among the foreign staff. There is too much of interference, too much of delay from the Government side which has been bothering them. We tried to get things sorted out,” Batra said.
In an e-mail circulated to the media, Batra said that Walsh had issues with the SAI over his contract. “Besides other issues he (Walsh) has issues with his contract with SAI, which now after his resignation expires on November 19,” he added.
“We suggest if SAI can have a re-look at his contract before November 19, so that he may continue till Olympic 2016. We suggest for a meeting between SAI and Walsh,” he said.
THE GAME THEY MUSTN’T PlAY