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 •My guest today is someone I’m proud to have been a friend of for a quarter of a century — Mr K.P.S. Gill. Always wonderful to have you as a friend, despite the kind of mess hockey is in right now and given how popular you are at the moment.

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.

The Jyotikumaran episode. Initially, when you watch that, it appears very, very shocking and I said it . . .

•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 we lost to Australia by a goal. Whenever he came to the grounds he was cheered by the crowds. So he had already been selected and he has already played for India in the juniors.

•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 get wiped out, which, according to what people say and with which I don’t agree, is that an Indian body recovers after 36 hours so we need more rest and I don’t agree with that because we have been able to put them through a physical drill in which they are at least able to perform to 50 per cent of their ability. Secondly, there’s a difference between seniors and juniors. We sent our team for a 21-day camp where there was no astroturf, just physical training. And they came back before the Olympics. They were against Holland just after getting off the plane. They made Holland run around in circles. Then they played a four-nation tournament in Germany and we were the victors. We beat Germany, we beat England and we beat whatever team there was and then we went to the Olympics. Prior to Olympics there was a terrible instance, which I wouldn’t like to go over.