Under pressure from all quarters after Indian men's hockey team chief coach Terry Walsh's sudden resignation because of a "pay dispute", the Sports Authority of India today sprang into action with its DG Jiji Thomson assuring that the matter will "resolved" between the aggreived parties.
SAI DG said he met Walsh at his office today and would convince the Australian to carry on in his post."I met him (Walsh) when he came to SAI today. He told me that he doesn't have any issues with SAI. The matter will be resolved. We want him to continue in his position," Thomson told PTI.
In a sudden jolt to Indian hockey, Walsh today resigned from his post because of a "pay dispute" with SAI, barely three weeks after guiding the team to a historic gold medal in the Asian Games in Incheon.
The 60-year-old Australian, himself a noted Olympian, submitted his resignation in dramatic fashion, saying that he was finding it difficult to adjust to the decision making style of the sporting bureaucracy in the country. His contract was to run till the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Soon after his resignation, Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that he was looking for a resolution of the issue and has sought a report from SAI within the next 24 hours.
On a day of high drama, Walsh's resignation created a flutter in the hockey fraternity and triggered off a blame game between Hockey India and SAI.
While HI maintained that the pay dispute and suffocating bureaucracy had prompted Walsh to quit, SAI rubbished that claim, saying that the Australian had never complained of any financial issues
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