New Delhi: Hockey players of Indian men’s and women’s teams are livid with former national coach Sjoerd Marijne.
The reason is that Marijne, who coached both the Indian women’s and men’s teams, has alleged in his upcoming book that Manpreet Singh asked a player “to stop playing well” so that his friends could get into the team.
The Dutchman has made the claim in his upcoming book ‘Will Power – The Inside Story of the Incredible Turnaround in Indian Women’s Hockey,’ excerpts of which were published in The Indian Express.
Marijne guided Deep Grace Ekka & Co. to a historic fourth-place finish at last year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Though the book mainly dwells on the women’s team, Marijne has also written about his tumultuous nine-month stint with the men’s team, which ended following a poor performance at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
The Indian teams issued a joint statement, hitting out at Marijne, while Hockey India (HI) termed the former coach’s allegations as baseless and said that the players will take action against him.
“We have seen in the press some disturbing allegations being made by the erstwhile Chief Coach of our teams, Mr Sjoerd Marijne. We have come together to state our deep disappointment in his exploitation of our personal information and false accusations. He has used his time of coaching us for commercial gain to sell his book at the cost of our reputation.
“This is a complete breach of trust and his duty of care as a coach. It also leads to all Indian athletes like us to feel vulnerable in such situations,” the statement added.
The players noted that they didn’t find any record of allegations filed with Hockey India and Sports Authority of India at that time.
“The Indian National men’s and women’s hockey team stand together with each other and will defend our integrity that has been brought to question by him. Our country, team and the sport of hockey are our collective top priority and under no circumstances will we allow for the integrity of any of our team members to be compromised for anyone else’s personal gain,” the statement added.
Marijne has alleged that ex-FIH president Narinder Batra didn’t know names of any other female player other than former captain Rani Rampal.
