God knows my conscience is clear: Jothikumaran

Former Indian Hockey Federation secretary general K Jothikumaran at a restaurant in Chennai on Friday. Pic/Ashwin Ferro

K Jothikumaran. Remember the name? Recall the face at every erstwhile Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) press conference? And is he here at the Asian Champions Trophy (ACT)? No. The ex-secretary general of the erstwhile IHF is at Anna Nagar, where he sits down for a chat, recalling the highs and lows of a near 15-year administrative career.

His stint as the man overseeing the day-to-day affairs of Indian hockey ended with a TV sting operation in 2008 in which he was allegedly accepting cash to select a player in the national squad.

Jothikumaran, 67, subsequently quit. The IHF was dissolved, an ad-hoc body was formed and eventually Hockey India came into being. A Delhi High Court order in 2010 however, revived IHF and even reinstated its president KPS Gill.

No more hockey for Jothi

Jothikumaran has moved away from hockey and won't be seen watching the ACT. "I have a successful real estate consultancy and restaurant business. I keep away from hockey and have not been invited for this ACT. But recently, FIH chief Tayyab Ikram and AHF [Asian Hockey Federation] chief Fumio Ogura, who are here, contacted me, saying they want to meet their ‘old friend.' It's nice to still have some friends in the game," he says.

Not being part of the hockey set up has not blunted his knowledge, his ability to recall events accurately. While the organisers of the ACT say they are proud, "to bring international hockey back to Chennai after 16 years," Jothikumaran wants to correct them. "It's not 16 years, but 15 years. After the 2007 Asia Cup held at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Hockey Stadium, India played a series against Belgium in 2008," he points out.

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Back to the controversy which caused his departure from hockey administration. "No one filed any criminal proceedings against me despite that so-called sting operation. In fact, I have sued that TV channel for defamation and the matter is pending before the Madras High Court. My lawyers have sought the original, unedited footage which the channel has not yet submitted. They put out a cut-paste edited version painting a false picture," insists Jothikumaran, going on to explain what actually transpired in that sting. "A person representing a Ghaziabad firm, Sunshine Builders & Promoters, contacted me for the conduct of a tournament and paid a capitation fee of R2 lakh. I even took them to meet my president Gill. Then, a passing mention of a national player was made and it was all blown up into a sting after the Indian hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time ever in 2008. My only mistake was that I did not verify the credentials of the person carrying this fake visiting card," says Jothikumaran, promptly whipping out the card from a bunch of meticulously preserved documents.

"Nothing was proved against me and it doesn't take away all the good work done by IHF. We organised around a dozen international events here between 1995 and 2008, including two Asia Cups, two Champions Trophies, SAFF Games, the Chief Minister's Trophy besides bilateral series against Germany, Pakistan, Poland and Belgium. In fact, I was instrumental in introducing artificial turf here for the 1995 SAFF Games. Initially, hockey was not part of the Games, so I urged then Indian Olympic Association president Sivanthi Adityan and secretary general Randhir Singh to include it so that a turf can come up. The rest, as they say, is history as Dhanraj Pillay helped India beat Shahbaz Ahmed's Pakistan 5-2 in a thrilling final for a famous gold medal," adds Jothikumaran.

IHF made mistakes

There is no doubt though that the IHF ran into many controversies and Jothikumaran admits there were errors. "The first was when IHF decided to drop Dhanraj and five other seniors immediately after the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games gold. Gill was the selection committee chairman and I told him that we shouldn't change a winning combination, but he felt that these players were over the hill. Then, when Viren Rasquinha was dropped for the 2006 Doha Asian Games, again, I was against it and even walked out of the meeting, but couldn't do much since a selection committee comprising Olympians and a government observer had made that call," he explains.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics debacle hurts the most though. "As part of the international hockey federation's [FIH] 2007 Promoting Indian Hockey project, funded by IOC, I brought in Australian legend Ric Charlesworth as technical advisor, but unfortunately, the India team management did not use him properly. Also, FIH introduced a new Olympic qualifying format and India had to go all the way to Chile to win a tournament where the umpiring was questionable," he says.

PHL before IPL, ISL

Money was never on IHF's mind, insists Jothikumaran. "In fact, while Hockey India today have big government sponsors [Odisha and TN], IHF only had Sahara's support. We introduced the franchise-based Premier Hockey League in 2004, before cricket's IPL and football's ISL. Players got more money than they ever imagined. Even when the State Bank of India awarded a cheque of R1cr for the 2007 Asia Cup-winning team, we distributed every penny to the players. IHF kept nothing, so where's the question of corruption? God knows that my conscience is clear," he says.

There'll be disbelievers and supporters, but India's hockey players of the 1990s and 2000s will never forget the name of K Jothikumaran.