Federation of India Withdraws From Hockey Pro League

It is now expected as one of the biggest competition in the hockey world, but unfortunately India is not going to be the part of this fascinating moment when the International Hockey Pro League to surface its debut in the current year 2019.

Indian Hockey has now withdrawn it International teams from this International tournament, while on the other hand the International Hockey Federation (FIH) was projecting the Indian team as the most outrageous team after the Olympic Games and the World Cup tournament held in India. The FIH, in the last week had confirmed the withdrawal of the Indian Hockey from the Pro League that is upcoming in 2019 and said it will soon find a replacement team to fulfill the league teams. FIH have now received a confirmation message from Indian Hockey that they had now withdrawn from the upcoming Hockey Pro League. FIH on this have given their views that they regret Indian Hockey Federation decision so as to not get involved in the upcoming fascinating global League that is making its debut this year, but now we had to find its replacement team which is available to be included in the International Hockey League Pro after due following an application process as the number of application for the tournament are oversubscribed. That there is a panel called Event Portfolio Implementation Panel which is now going to convene a meeting in near future so as to discuss the implications that sounds practical of formally inviting replacement teams as if in case there is a team withdrawal that can be included to participate in the upcoming pro matches of men’s and women’s League, it was also shocked on the decision of withdrawal by Hockey India without giving any kind of reasoning for this drastic step taken by them. From 2019, it is speculated that the Pro League matches may become one of the qualifying tournaments for the International Olympics and World Cups, as the league offers four qualifying stages while the rest of the instances have been shared between Hockey World League (HWL) and the matches of continental championships. The league will be occasioned from January to June each year from now on home and foreign basis, will be played between top nine teams of the world.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/hockey/india-hockey-dont-play-pro-league-score-own-goal-5547533/