‘I want govt to declare Chandigarh a hockey city and put five astroturfs there. Automatically the players will come’

•So you’d say that Jyotikumaran, if anything, was being greedy and stupid?

Extremely greedy and extremely stupid. But I will not like to comment on it.

•But he could not have swung a selection. That’s what you are saying?

He could have never swung a selection.

•If what you see (on videotape) is accurate, then he was greedy, stupid and was also lying if he was promising to get somebody selected?

See, one thing you have to notice is that . . . except for one mugshot, all the rest is voiceovers.

•No, no, that’s why I’m saying if this is accurate then he was all three — greedy, stupid, and a liar.

Yes, he was all three.

•Let’s come back to the question of the so-called mess in Indian Hockey on which we are focused now because of our inability to qualify. Let’s look at the big picture. How deep is the mess? Is it a mess?

No, no, we have talent . . . And after I took over, my emphasis was on youth: bring on younger players and groom them. So what happened? In 1997, we were silver medalists in the Junior World Cup. There is no other team game — leave aside cricket, I am talking about Olympic game — in which we have ever been silver medalist in the junior event in the history of that game.

•But, you know, for all our success in the junior tournaments, there is an unkind explanation, which is that birth certificates are a bit dodgy in our part of the world.

No, no. Then in 2001, we were winners and from 2001-2003 these boys were playing in the senior tournaments and we beat every single nation till certain elements intervened and started deliberately destroying our hockey team.

•What was done by them?

One was to destroy the morale by constantly giving negative reports. And second, by constantly attacking the IHF for what reasons I don’t know. But we will have to find out what reasons are there. We have a great inability to play back-to-back matches. If we have as second match following the first match . . .

•. . . we get wiped out.

We...