Bhubaneswar: In a major embarrassment for the World Cup organisers, four Indian players including captain Manpreet Singh were yelled at, forced to apologise and were thrown out by Hockey India (HI) CEO Elena Norman after they were seen at the VIP lounge of the Kalinga Stadium during the match between Netherlands and Canada.
As per the protocol of the tournament, the players were not entitled to be present at the VIP lounge. But on the request of a few near and dear ones, Manpreet and a few players entered the area and was busy in signing autographs and clicking pictures with their fans.
“Get out from here. How dare you come here? Now just shut up and get out,” Norman shouted at Manpreet, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh and Krishan Pathak for not wearing ‘proper band’ and entering into an area not meant for Indian players, according to a source close to the Indian players.
“The players were just chatting and talking to each other and did not know the area was not meant for them. Firstly, how can they stop Indian hockey players and their captain from entering a VIP lounge. Indian Hockey is because of hockey players not its officials. Secondly, there is a way to communicate. How can you say shut up and get out to the Indian captain?” the source explained who witnessed the whole incident.
“She then started berating an official present there, using a lot of foul language which included F’s & B’s. There were so many former players, former Olympians, Arjuna Awardee along with the public who were guests there who got shocked,” the source added.
Interestingly, some foreign players, including a few Australians were allowed and kept on staying in the lounge despite the unexpected and rude reprimand, the source added.
When asked India captain Manpreet about the episode, he said: “It was our own mistake that we went to the restricted area without our knowledge. It is not that we were taken there forcibly by someone. Anyways, when we realised our mistake we just came out.”
“These are minor episodes which will have no effect on our performance against Netherlands tomorrow,” he said, referring to the all-important quarterfinal
However, the incident didn’t go down well with the some former hockey players and said that she should have reacted in a polite way.
“If she had used those words, that’s wrong. She should have reacted in proper manner, in a polite tone, because these things do really affect the player in some way or the other,” member of 1975 World Cup-winning Indian team Ashok Kumar said over phone.