A big deal: Sahara for Indian hockey

Indian hockey may just have turned a vital corner on the road back to the Golden Era. Days after the team won back-to-back international tit...

Indian hockey may just have turned a vital corner on the road back to the Golden Era. Days after the team won back-to-back international titles abroad, the Indian Hockey Federation announced on Wednesday a long-term sponsorship deal with Sahara India.

The deal — signed by IHF president KPS Gill and Sahara chairman Subrata Roy — is ‘‘upward of Rs 20 crore’’, according to a top source. At Rs 2.5 crore a year, that makes it worth more than double IHF’s deal with Castrol that ended in May.

DEAL DOESN’T INCLUDE TELECAST
News of the deal raised speculation that the IHF might tie up with Sahara for live telecast of India’s international matches, since the company owns TV network. But Sarkar ruled this out for the moment saying that ‘‘right now we can’t say anything since the details are still to be finalised.’’ Gill says the issue did not come up in the deal with Sahara and the IHF already has an arrangement with Doordarshan for showing matches played in India. There are also unconfirmed reports of IHF negotiating with ESPN in this direction. Internationally, any sponsorship deal has a clause for proper live coverage of the game and other activities for publicity. Story continues below this ad

Under the deal, whose benefits will be extended to the junior team, Besides, Sahara — which also sponsors the national cricket team — has committed itself to promotional activities involving players and extending its infrastructure facilities for training purpose.

The deal will quite literally give the Indian hockey team a new look. According to Sahara’s corporate communication chief Abhijit Sarkar, the team will wear designer jerseys. ‘‘We will get a reputed designer to design the hockey team’s clothes, just like we do for the cricketers,’’ he said.

But what was the reason for Sahara getting into hockey? According to Sarkar, Sahara was always keen to promote the national game. ‘‘Since Castrol was already there, we decided to keep out. But the moment they pulled out, we did not want to miss the chance to be associated with a hockey revival.’’

What remains unclear so far, however, is the trickle-down effect to the players. So far, nothing has been promised to the team that recently won titles in Australia and Germany.

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Speaking to The Indian Express, Gill ruled out the possibility of match fees being given from the sponsorship money to members of the Indian team. ‘‘We are not looking at match fees. It’s highly irregular — in some years, the team may not be playing international matches at all.’’

However, there appeared to be more flexibility on the issue of paying logo fees — Gill said the IHF would look into it. Incidentally, the Indian cricket team received Rs 3 crores as logo fees for World Cup 2003.

Sahara said they had not placed any condition to the IHF for paying match fees to players or on logo issue. ‘‘We will go as per the IHF direction,’’ said the company’s corporate communication chief.

However, match fees has been a thorny issue for the IHF. So far, the players do not get match fees from IHF for international matches. On eve of the revival of Test series with Pakistan in 1998, the Indian players had even refused to tour until a match fee was fixed for them. On that occasion, IHF had worked out a compromise and there is speculation that the players will raise the issue with the IHF.