Harendra Singh, the chief coach of the Indian ladies’s hockey workforce, has determined to step down from the function owing to non-public causes, Hockey India knowledgeable in an announcement on Monday.
Explaining his determination, Harendra Singh mentioned, “Teaching the Indian ladies’s hockey workforce has been a privilege that has been a spotlight of my profession. Although private causes name me to step away, my coronary heart stays with this extraordinary workforce and their ongoing success. I’ll all the time cherish my journey with Hockey India and proceed to assist their efforts to take Indian hockey to the best ranges of feat.”
Wishing him the very best for his subsequent chapter, Hockey India President Dr Dilip Tirkey mentioned, “We thank Harendra Singh for his companies and his exemplary expertise. His dedication in direction of the event of Indian Hockey is well-known throughout the hockey neighborhood internationally. Whereas we’ll announce an appropriate substitute quickly, we want him the easiest.”
Bhola Nath Singh, Hockey India Secretary Basic, additional added, “We lengthen our assist to Harendra Singh and his contributions to the workforce. We want him the easiest and additional proceed to make sure the Indian Girls’s Workforce’s preparations will proceed as deliberate for the Qualifiers.”
Although Harendra and Hockey India cited private causes for the choice to resign, sources declare that the matter will not be so simple as it sounds.
Harendra has been underneath scrutiny for the previous few months because the workforce’s outcomes have nosedived, and it has not solely been relegated from the FIH Professional League however has additionally slipped down in World Rankings.
There are additionally claims that some gamers have made a latest criticism to the Sports activities Ministry alleging misbehavior by Harendra with some gamers. The Ministry has sought a response from Hockey India, and although no proof was discovered, Harendra appears to have taken ethical accountability.
Harendra, who has been employed with Air India, earlier with Indian Airways, and coached their workforce on the nationwide degree, had a profitable stint with the junior males’s workforce, which he guided to the FIH Junior World Cup in 2016 in Lucknow.
He was first appointed the chief coach in 2018 when Dutchman Sjoerd Marijne was shunted to the boys’s workforce simply earlier than the Commonwealth Video games in Gold Coast in 2018.
With the transfer not working for each side, Marijne was given the cost of the ladies’s workforce and finally led the workforce to a historic fourth-place end within the Tokyo Olympic Video games in 2021. Harendra was given cost of the senior nationwide males’s workforce in 2019.
Whereas Janneke Schopman took over from her mentor as chief coach of the Indian ladies’s workforce, Harendra was appointed head coach of the USA males’s nationwide workforce, the place he stayed until 2024 earlier than returning to India and was named the Indian ladies’s workforce coach.