Hockey Captain Manpreet told player not to play well: Former coach's big claim

India's former hockey coach Sjoerd Marijne has levelled a big allegation against men’s team captain Manpreet Singh in his upcoming book ‘Will Power’.

Marijne, who coached the men’s team before leading the women's hockey team to a historic 4th-place finish at Tokyo Olympics, wrote in his book that Manpreet Singh had allegedly told a player to 'stop playing so well' during the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

Explaining the incident in his soon-to-be-released memoir, the Dutchman wrote that when he picked a teenager for the Gold Coast Games he was convinced a new star had been discovered. But when the player failed to make any impression in the quadrennial event, he was 'deeply mystified’'

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He further wrote that the then high-performance director, David John, had later told him that the teenager claimed it was Manpreet, who told him not to play so well because his friends could not get into the team.

He added that he didn’t know if Manpreet had said so jokingly or not but the revelation made him very angry.

Interestingly, it was under Marijne’s tenure in 2017 that Manpreet was made captain of the Indian hockey team.

While talking about the incident to the Indian Express, Marijne expressed his disappointment, stating how he trusted Manpreet and never thought he would do something like this.