Hockey India (HI), upset with the ‘clock’ fiasco during India’s women’s hockey semi-final against Australia in the ongoing Commonwealth Games on Friday, has asked the world body (FIH) to amend the regulations and take strict action against erring technical officials. Women were undone by a stopwatch faux pas by technical officials during the shootout, which they eventually lost 0-3.

FIH has already apologised and ordered a review. In a letter to FIH CEO Thierry Weil, HI chief executive Elena Norman highlighted that India were always on the receiving side of such errors. “Errors during Penalty Shoot-out situations have been occurring which have consistently denied India of a meaningful result from a match at vital events,” Norman claimed.

The HI official asked FIH to address the matter on a priority basis. “... in the case of a failure from the team of Technical Officials, there is nothing concrete in the Regulations which needs to be followed by the participating team,” Norman wrote. “...Technical Officials, whose actions lead to denying the ‘fair & correct’ decision to a participant, should not be appointed for major competitions and substantial inquiry must be conducted to ensure such situations don’t happen again in the future.” Norman said FIH should address the issue without just sidestepping the matter by terming it a ‘human error’.