No change in Champions Trophy dates

The International Hockey Federation has decided against any postponement of the Champions Trophy schedule despite repeated requests by the Indian Olympic Association, in view of a clash of dates with the Afro-Asian Games, slated to be held in New Delhi.

The FIH decision was conveyed in a letter to IOA secretary-general Randhir Singh.

"The FIH said it is not possible to change the dates of the 23rd Champions Trophy, slated to be held in Lahore from November 4 to 11 this year," FIH's communications manager Steven Morres told PTI over phone from Brussels on Wednesday.

He said the decision to stick to the original dates is due to the fact that any change at this stage will be detrimental to the participating teams' programmes.

"All the participating teams would have planned their schedule of preparation for the Champions Trophy, a prestigious tournament in the FIH calender," he said.

"I have gone through every correspondence in this regard and the FIH has been consistently maintaining that it is not possible to change the Champion Trophy dates, which is said to be clashing with the Afro Asian Games, to be held in India," he said.

Mores agreed that such clashes of events are to be avoided in future but in this present scenario said one should not misconstrue the FIH decision.

He said Pakistan and South Korea are the two teams from the zone which have qualified for the Champions Trophy and perhaps the organisers of the Afro Asian Games could appeal for strong teams to be fielded by these two countries.

As recently as last Sunday, IOA president Suresh Kalmadi had, in New Delhi, expressed the confidence that efforts to get the Champions Trophy rescheduled would succeed and the Afro-Asian Games, to be held in Delhi from November 3 to 11, would see the top three teams in Asia -- India, Pakistan and South Korea -- battle it out with the best from Africa.

Indian Hockey Federation president K P S Gill said: "We are very disappointed as the Afro-Asian Games hockey tournament will become a very major event. It would have been good if Pakistan and Korea participated."

Referring to the two likely replacements -- Japan and Bangladesh -- Gill said: "Japan is a much improved side and had played a very close match with Pakistan in the recent Prime Minister's Gold Cup tournament in Dhaka, while Bangladesh cannot be under- estimated."