Athlete Dutee Chand wrote down a post on her Facebook account criticising the state government for only spending money on Hockey and ignoring all the other games in the state.
Chand in a post wrote, “The state government is busy spending crores for the sports in Odisha, but that isn’t helping as the sportspersons are slowly vanishing from the picture. It’s only politics regarding sports here.”
She while blaming the state government for giving all importance to Hockey wrote, “You give significance to Hockey while all the other forms of sports have completely vanished. You have crores to invest for Hockey India, but nothing when it comes to other athletes. How long will the Hockey stick last? Will break down after it’s old.
It’s all a show off.”
However, Dilip Tirkey, former Hockey player and current Chairman of the Odisha Hockey Promotion Council lashed back at her on his Twitter account. He in a series of tweets wrote, “As a sports person I strongly condemn this kind of statement from another sportsman who herself belongs to Odisha.Odisha Government has always given importance to all sports be it Hockey or be it athletics.”
He added, “Bagging medal in Olympic is not everyone’s cup of tea. Why Bhubaneswar (Odisha) is known as the sports capital of India that everyone knows very well.
And if people realy don’t know then they should know that Hockey is the game which has given recognition to India in International level .This comment is unparliamentary and discouraging for the fellow athletes.
And lastly being a player one should learn to give respect to other players.”
However, after the social media outrage, Dutee deleted her tweet. She had also commented on the post of Department of Sports and Youth services congratulating Pragya and Susmita after they bagged the bronze medals at the Indian Grand Prix 2 in Kerala.
The comments gathered huge criticism from netizens.
