Indian Hockey players consider hunger strike over T20 cash

[Spring Onion]

Hockey players consider hunger strike over T20 cash



New Delhi, September 26: Indian hockey players are considering going on hunger strike to protest about the rewards being given to the winning Twenty20 cricket World Cup squad.
National hockey coach Joaquim Carvalho, whose side retained the Asian Cup title this month, said players from the southern Karnataka state were thinking of staging a hunger strike after the state government announced payments only to the Twenty20 squad members from the region.

"We are not upset or jealous with the cricketers, we are proud of them," Carvalho told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday.

"But where were the same state governments when our players did the country proud?

"We're talking about recognition, not just money. We are not that greedy or jealous but we protest against the treatment being meted out to sports other than cricket."

The Twenty20 squad, surprise winners of the tournament in South Africa, arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday to a grand victory parade before being showered with cash awards totalling $3 million by the cricket board.

The players have been promised houses by the team sponsor while Yuvraj Singh, who hit six sixes in one over against England, was presented with a Porsche by a senior board official.

India won eight Olympic hockey gold medals while dominating the sport in the first half of the 20th century but have faded away in the last two decades and have been taken off the government's priority

Reuters
Posted online: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 12:00:00
Updated: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 05:03:04Print Email To Editor

Hockey players consider hunger strike over T20 cash

 

[Spring Onion]

Poor hockey players face the same problem in Pakistan.
There is need to treat them if not as Cricket players but atleast give them some facilities and privilages.

Its been the long-standing demand of Pakistan hockey players too and same is with the Indian hockey players.

 

[Awesome]

It's all about which sport fetches more money from the sponsors, from the viewers.

We are a nation where our top musicians and celebrities live a relatively simpler life. So you can imagine the treatment a fading out sport would get.

In Pakistan however, the craze is also dying because the damn team has performed really poor in the last 10 years.