{image-hockey thotta padam_18032008.jpg news.oneindia.in}New Delhi, Mar 18: The under fire IHF chief K P S Gill today started intensive damage control excerice meeting with former skippers and chief coach Joaquim Carvalho here devise ways to hockey out of morass after National team failed to qualify for Beijing Olympics.

Former captains Balbir Singh Sr, Ajitpal Singh, Zafar Iqbal, Harmik Singh, M P Ganesh, B P Govinda and M P Singh along with some other Olympians and Internationals were called for this urgent meeting to devise ways and means to put the game back on the track. Others who took part in the delibrations were team manager R K Shetty, Baldev Singh, and Charles Cornelius.

Indian Hockey federation (IHF) has come under tremendous criticism after India failed to make it to the Olympics for the first time in 80 years.

Indian Hockey made its debut in the Olympics in 1928.

Former Olympians including Ashok Kumar and Aslam Sher Khan have openly come out against the present IHF set up and have called for immediate end of the 14- year long regime of K P S Gill.

Meanwhile, there seemed to be no respite for the belegured IHF as FIH nominated coach Ric Charlesworth has declined to job of develoing junior teams.

Last evening officials of the Sports Ministry and IHF decided that Charlesworth be entrusted with the charge of the development of teams such as the under-19 and under-21 squads and not the men's senior side.

''Nothing has been communicated to me as yet but I have not come here for that,'' Charlesworth asserted and added his ''contract has not been finalised.''

UNI