New Delhi: Sports journalists today boycotted the FIH press conference for the second time in the week in protest against the mishandling of media accreditations ahead of the hockey World Cup which gets underway here tomorrow.
No sooner the International Hockey Federation president
Leandro Negre started to address the media at a city hotel
today, a journalist from a foreign news agency stood up and
raised his reservations on the distribution of media
accreditation.
He also complained about the harrasment which the
covering mediapersons were facing on the pretext of security
concerns.
After listening patiently to the scribe, Negre apologised
to the reporters for the mismanagement.
"On behalf of FIH, I apologise to you all for the
inconvenience caused to you. We were aware about all your
problems and are trying our best to solve them," he said.
"But at this moment, security is a big issue in India.
And frankly I tell you all the accreditations is not in our
hand. Being the FIH president, I myself is facing a lot of
problems in entering the stadium," he added.
However, the FIH chief's words did very little to calm
the agitated journalists who then walked out of the conference
leaving a handful of foreign reporters inside.
Despite repeated pleas, the scribes refused to return
after which the world body decided to move on with the
briefing along with the foreign media.
Incidentally, it was for the second time in the week
journalists walked out of an FIH event.
Earlier on Wednesday, the scribes boycotted a World Cup
sponsor announcement function, which was attended by FIH
communications manager Arjen Meijer in protest against the ban
on the coverage of team's training and practice sessions.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010, 13:42