Hockey pay fiasco: Shah Rukh guns for players

Deepak Jain>Tue, Jan 12 10 11:55 AM

Two years after bringing in fresh recognition for hockey with his Bollywood blockbuster Chak De India, actor Shah Rukh Khan has now taken up the cause of the national hockey players amid a gripping payment crisis in the sport. In the city to oversee the ongoing camp of the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Calcutta Cricket & Football Club (CCFC), Shah Rukh today gave a strong statement in support of the national hockey players who are fighting a bitter battle against the national hockey federation for not getting pending payments.

"Hockey is very special and it's our national sport. What has happened is really sad," Shah Rukh told reporters here on the sidelines of the Knight Riders camp. The national players, who are in Pune for a camp, took to a strike protesting non-payment of dues, then brokered a temporary, and finally resumed their indefinite strike today after talks fell through.

Asked if the national hockey should go ahead with the agitation, the Bollywood actor and co-owner of the IPL side Knight Riders said: "Everyone has to take a stand in the way they feel but I hope the issue gets resolved. It's not nice that there is a strike and it's not nice either if the players go out to play when they are actually unhappy and unattended to in some matters of economics. I hope it gets resolved soon. The focus should be on resolving the crisis and not highlighting it," Shah Rukh said.

The popular actor pointed out that the ongoing dispute has come at the wrong time, with the World Cup round the corner.

Hockey India seems to have brokered some sort of peace when they met six of the senior Indian players, including captain Rajpal Singh, in New Delhi last Saturday, but talks fell through and the players resumed their strike starting today.

Last week, Shah Rukh created a flutter on Twitter when he posted a message backing the national players over the payment fracas.

'Kolkata has been let down'

The owner of the KKR franchise took it upon himself when asked to analyze the team's failure in the first season of the IPL carnival. "Kolkata has been let down," Shah Rukh said, admitting that the Knights didn't do well enough and that as co-owner of the side, he was partly responsible for the poor showing.

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