Indian Hockey Players Offended by 25,000 Cash Award
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 15 September 2011, 00:44 IST   |    1 Comments
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Indian Hockey Players Offended by Rs.25,000 Cash Award
Bangalore: After the outrage over Hockey India's meager incentives to the victorious hockey players, the Sports Ministry hiked the reward money. Union Sports Minister Ajay Makan, said the government will give an award of 1.5 lakh each to 17 members of hockey team that won in China. He also clarified by saying that the Rs 25,000 offered to each player for winning Asian Champions Trophy was not announced by government but by Hockey India. Meanwhile, following the uproar over the issue, the Punjab and the Maharashtra governments have announced rewards of 25 lakh and 10 lakh respectively for the players. Senior player Gurbaz Singh said, we were offered 25,000 each by HI Secretary General Narinder Batra as reward for winning the Asian Champions Trophy but we all refused to take it because it a very small reward considering our achievement. Gurbaz said it was not possible to draw youngsters to the game with such rewards. We did not expect such a small amount as reward, considering the fact that hockey is our national game. If such things continue, there will be a day when there will be very few kids interested in playing hockey. They would rather opt for cricket or any other individual sport," he added.

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