Hockey WC: Harendra Singh gets official reprimand for criticising umpire's decisions

Indian men's hockey team coach Harendra Singh on Sunday received an official reprimand from the International Hockey Federation (FIH) for publicly criticising decisions made the umpire during their quarterfinal match against the Netherlands in the ongoing Hockey World Cup.

The FIH Technical Delegate decided that the coach committed a breach of the Code of Conduct (Level 1, 2.2 k: Public criticism of, or inappropriate public comment in relation to an incident occurring in an International Match or any Participant or team participating in any International Match or FIH, generally, irrespective of when such criticism or inappropriate comment is made) at the press conference following the match between India and Netherlands on December 13.

In its decision, the FIH Technical Delegate indicated that the statements from India's coach at the press conference regarding the umpires were unacceptable. The same was admitted by Singh himself during the hearing.

This official reprimand will be recorded by the FIH and can be taken into account if the coach breaches the Code of Conduct again at a future event, the Technical Delegate noted.

After the quarters match against the Netherlands, Singh lashed out at the umpires as he was unhappy over their decision to award the Dutch team a penalty corner off which they had scored a winning goal.

"I want to say that we can fight 11 versus 11 in a match but not 13 versus 11. The umpires cannot rob the World Cup from this team. It happened two times in the game, we got a card when we had done nothing wrong. Their decisions went against us," Singh had said.

India's hopes of lifting the World Cup title were shattered when the hosts lost their quarter-final clash of the prestigious tournament 1-2 against the Netherlands.