Tayyab Ikram, President, FIH interacts with media at Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium, in Rourkela, Odisha, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
He came in as a replacement candidate but new FIH President Tayyab Ikram has hit the ground running in the first 60 days of his tenure.
“I have already had open, frank conversations with more than 80 national team captains so far. It is an amazing community and it also gave me a realisation that I am not as fully prepared to take up this role the way they are. I have engaged with almost all stakeholders, the national Olympic committees and have had a fantastic response from them so far. It has been a hectic time but I am happy with the things I have seen in the last two months,” Mr. Ikram told the media here on Sunday.
He is also clear about his priorities going ahead and reviewing the FIH event portfolio is one of them. “We are a federation of 140 countries at the moment and my first priority is to ensure that the FIH is relevant to all 140 counties. Second, to engage our athletes in a more positive way not just in hockey skills but also providing them the best opportunity to perform and see if hockey is ready to provide them with more career opportunities going ahead,” he said.
“The third is the event portfolio. There is a lot of demand for a review and there is an appetite for certain tournaments. The Nations Cup is a step in the right direction. There will be a consultation process that will start in March. We used to have lots of teams in World Series and World League like Fiji, Italy Belarus and those teams would like to come back for FIH tournaments,” he listed out.
Asked about adding more competitions, Mr. Ikram was honest. “It’s true that the window is very congested but we are not discouraging any countries from proposing 4-6 nation events. We have the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and the Sultan of Johor Cup for the juniors, which are being continued. We have had a proposal from Hockey India for another tournament but we do not have a concrete proposal yet,” he said.
“There is also already some discussion to find a window for the Hockey India League (HIL) but we are still waiting for it and we will look at it because hockey in India has a professional way to organise it. HIL gave us a big boost, let’s see how it combines with the Pro League because the biggest question is the availability of athletes,” he explained.
He was also clear that there were no plans to increase the number of teams from the current 16 in the World Cup going ahead.