Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh Hockey team has been disqualified from the national sub-junior tournament being played in Haryana right in the first match. The Uttar Pradesh team, which was supposed to play against the state, allegedly protested against three of MP’s players who, they claimed, had earlier played for their team.
It is a major development for Madhya Pradesh which has long been called the ‘Nursery of Hockey’. The match was handed over to Uttar Pradesh without any game due to the forfeiture of the opposing team.
Ahead of the scheduled match, the Uttar Pradesh team claimed that three of the players in the Madhya Pradesh team earlier used to play for Uttar Pradesh. They said the players never took any no-objection certificate. All of them were enrolled in the team with their address being Jabalpur. No prior documents, however, supported their relation with Jabalpur.
Even before the tournament, the selection of the team had raised many eyebrows. The players and district body heads had claimed that the selection process was unfair. The state body allegedly did not hold any tournament ahead of the selection.
Hockey Madhya Pradesh had issued a letter for the district bodies to send their players for trial and register them with Hockey India ahead of the tournament.
