Pullouts, lack of publicity, sustainability concerns: HIL 2.0 kicks off with cautious optimism

Hockey India League version 2.0 faces challenges with player withdrawals, lack of sponsors, and marketing concerns.

On Friday, eight teams took turns to sweat it out, one last time, a day before Hockey India League version 2.0 kicks off at the Birsa Munda Stadium here, officially the largest for hockey in the world. While some of them went through their final calculations and combinations as the Indians and foreigners in the ranks trained together, others hoped the plans on paper would seamlessly translate to performance on field.

While the on-field success of HIL will only be known later, the league hasn’t had the smoothest of starts off it. The pre-tournament coaches’ media interaction, while largely positive, did have some interesting insights, specially on the large-scale withdrawals by foreign players for various reasons. Although most of the coaches insisted that they were satisfied with the final squad assembled by the various teams, they also admitted that the withdrawals necessitated changes in planning.

“Of course there is a basic line-up in your head when you go for the auction. I think for the foreign players, if they put in what is the minimum fee they expect and make their time free for the entire tournament here, then they have an obligation to come. Now they only have to put in their names and there is no obligation, that has to change. The good thing is that all the franchises have the same problem, at the end we are happy with the players we have,” UP Rudras coach Paul van Ass said.

Interestingly Paul’s son Seve, part of the gold-winning Dutch side at the Paris Olympics, was picked up UP and is amongst the players to pull out but the Dutch coach simply shrugged, implying he had little to do with Seve’s decision.

England coach Paul Revington, meanwhile, admitted that the timing of the HIL affected participation. “I have a different perspective. The international calendar is very busy and the HIL, while it’s fantastic to be reintroduced, came into the calendar quite late from a planning point of view. All the coaches probably anticipated that there were going to be moments when players realised they had a lot of competition in December-January and with clubs. That said, there are enough international players to fill each position so all of us are flexible and adaptable,” he added.

At last count, 21 men and eight women overseas players had pulled out, despite Hockey India categorically stating that anyone refusing to come after being bought at the auction for non-medical reasons will be barred for three seasons. Clearly, late introduction is only one of the reasons, which also falls through given that the FIH had informed everyone about the allotted exclusive window.

Hockey India has insisted that the primary focus of the HIL will be on Indian players but there is no denying that you need foreign presence to make it truly world-class and competitive.