No dues, no play, say hockey players

New Delhi:

Chak de India may fall a bit flat at the hockey World Cup next month if the latest crisis in the national game is not resolved: the players are boycotting the preparatory camp in Pune demanding that they be paid their dues first.

The World Cup is scheduled to be held in New Delhi from February 28 to March 13. The players say they will stay away from practice indefinitely since Hockey India, the interim body that governs the game in the country, has failed to respond to two of their letters asking the authorities to make payments.
"We have decided to boycott the camp indefinitely till we are paid our money. We took such a decision in a meeting of players last night", the Captain, Rajpal Singh told PTI.
So what kind of money are we talking about? Consider this. The daily allowance money, a government allowance, given to members of the national team depends on the country they are travelling to. When the team travelled to Malaysia for the Azlan Shah Cup, each player got a princely sum of $14 of Rs 640 per day. India brought home the cup.