Hockey Players Demanded Rs Five Cr for Charity Matches, Alleges Organisers
Organizers of a charity event have claimed that the hockey players demanded Rs 5 crore to feature in the matches, an allegation that the national team members have denied, reported PTI.
Hardeep Sandhu, a member of the organiser committee of AMR foundation claimed that hockey players led by Prabhjot Singh, Rajpal Singh and Deepak Thaukar were insisting Rs 5 crore to play in the four charity matches of 15 minutes each which will also feature Bollywood and TV stars, said report.
“AMR foundation had roped in 22 players to feature in four exhibition matches with Bollywood and TV stars but when yesterday one of the representatives of the organisers handed them the flight tickets from New Delhi to Chandigarh, a group of players told they don’t want these tickets as they are not gaining anything,” Sandhu was quoted as saying.
“Players said they were expecting Rs 4 to 5 crore from sponsorship. Now that not much sponsors are coming, they refused to play. The organisers are very upset as despite written agreement they are backing out,” he was quoted as saying.
Three players, Prabhjot, Rajpal and Deepak however denied the allegations and said in Chandigarh that they would be calling on the organizers and also demanded an apology from them.
“This is absolutely baseless. It baffles me why organisers are making such allegations at this moment. I smell a conspiracy here. There is no demand of money, we know it is a charity match,” Rajpal was quoted as saying.
Ansul Nagar, AMR Foundation spokesman, said that there was no particular deal and they had just planned to give the sponsorship money from the charity to the players, said report.
“There was no deal. There was an emotional call, where in we would be having this event in which all sponsors would come in, all money would be given to the players directly and now they are talking about Rs 4-5 crores,” he was quoted as saying.
On the other hand, Deepak said that flight tickets were not given to some of the players and also claimed that the organisers had not confirmed their participation, said report.
