Hockey India President Dilip Tirkey chairs executive board meeting

NEW DELHI: Hockey India executive board meeting held on Monday here was chaired by the newly elected President Dilip Tirkey.

The major focal point of the meeting was the upcoming FIH Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup Bhubaneswar-Rourkela 2023 in January as well as reviving the grassroots programme particularly for junior and sub-junior categories.

"We had a very fruitful executive board meeting today and among many other important issues we discussed; the main agenda was the upcoming FIH Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup Bhubaneswar-Rourkela 2023 which coincides with Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav - India's 75th year of independence.

We want to create awareness among children and the youth about the historic achievements in hockey both pre and post Independence. We also want youth to be more involved in the upcoming World Cup and discussed initiatives to ensure this," expressed Tirkey.

The former India Captain Tirkey also highlighted his plans to revive the grassroots structure in the country by introducing zonal-level tournaments for sub-junior and junior girls and boys.

"Particularly in this (sub-junior and junior) age group, we have fewer tournaments apart from the Hockey India Annual Championships. So, the plan is to introduce more exposure tournaments such as zonal championships.

The tournament will be divided into four zones, with two teams' being selected from each zone. We want to give more and more opportunities for this age group in order to catch them young and bring them into the national programme," he said.

Tirkey also passionately spoke of having a specialized training programme for goalkeepers and dragflickers apart from having hockey training programmes at the grassroots level which is integrated with academics.

"We also discussed having special training for goalkeepers and dragflickers at the grassroot level."

"I also believe there is scope to revive the erstwhile Hockey India League and we also discussed the potential in starting a league on similar lines for women. In all, it has been a good start and we look forward to working together towards development of hockey," Tirkey added.

The meeting was attended by treasurer Sekar J Monoharan, vice president SVS Subramanya Gupta, joint secretary Aarti Singh, joint secretary Sunil Malik and Executive Board members Arun Kumar Sarswat, Asrita Lakra, Gurpreet Kaur, V Sunil Kumar and Tapan Kumar Das.