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

Popularity and unpopularity are, as the scriptures say: don’t worry about them as they are immaterial things. As far as hockey being in a mess is concerned . . .

•. . . the Jyotikumaran episode.

•Very, very shocking.

But when you look at it dispassionately, you see a camera shot of Jyotikumaran receiving money. How much money is not mentioned. Whose money is not mentioned. A case is made out, that this was done to include a specific player in a team going to, I think, the Azlan Shah tournament. Now, the team till then hadn’t been selected and Jyotikumaran is not concerned with the selection for last almost one year.

•So he could have taken the money saying I will try my best. That could be the case?

The case, from what I’ve read, is that they went to him and said that they want to have a tournament which will outdo the Azlan Shah tournament. (They said) we are going to spend so much money, and according to Jyotikumaran’s statement, this was an advance (amount) to be used for making arrangements. . . . Secondly, trying to link that with selection is an entirely despicable act and I cannot condemn that act with more force at my command.

•Why do you say so?

Because selection has always been fair. There are players who will say we were not in the team, therefore we were not selected because somebody else paid the money. And this boy who was mentioned, he belongs to a very, very poor family. He has no father. I don’t know if the journalist who conducted this sting operation knows that he has no father.

•Which boy, the boy who was to be selected?

Who they said is our relative and should be . . . he has already played for the Indian junior team in the nine-nations tournament in Malaysia, in which we were second. We had beaten Australia in the pool matches and in the finals...