Under-fire IHF president KPS Gill on Wednesday refused to quit in the wake of India's failure to qualify for the Beijing Olympics saying he will not give in to the "whole drama of resignation."
"It is very easy to resign and sit at home, but that will not serve any purpose. I will not give in to the propaganda that is being created," Gill told NDTV.
He said everyone concerned with hockey in India needed to get together and find out the reasons for the debacle in Chile and chart a roadmap for the future.
Gill said India should have qualified for the Olympics at the 2006 Doha Asian Games itself where they finished outside the medal bracket for the first time since hockey was included in the continental mega event in 1958.
"We floundered badly in Doha. One bad spell of 10 minutes in a match (against China) cost us. It should not have come to Santiago at all," he said.
The IHF chief claimed the complicated qualification procedure also put lot of pressure on the team. "It was a new qualification procedure. Two or three months before the qualifying tournament, we didn't know where we had to play. Only one team had to go through and unfortunately, we didn't make it," Gill said.
{{/usCountry}}The IHF chief claimed the complicated qualification procedure also put lot of pressure on the team. "It was a new qualification procedure. Two or three months before the qualifying tournament, we didn't know where we had to play. Only one team had to go through and unfortunately, we didn't make it," Gill said.
{{/usCountry}}India now needed to prepare in earnest for the 2010 World Cup and Commonwealth Games, both of which it is scheduled to host, as well as qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics.
Gill said he was not considering stepping down before the two mega events to be hosted in two years' time.
"I will go on till 2010. After that, we will see."