Feel awful for Indian hockey players: Shah Rukh Khan

Zeenews Bureau Mumbai: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan aka Chak De India’s Kabir Khan on Saturday condemned the ill-fate of the Indian hockey players, who had to fight against the authorities for their salaries. On a social networking website, Twitter, SRK said it is a shame that being the national sport, hockey is not given due importance and the players have to fight for a very basic thing like wages. “I feel awful for the Indian hockey team... (Hockey is our) national sport and (the players) have to ask for salary… And we complain we don’t win gold,” Shah Rukh wrote. Khan has been widely praised for bringing the pathetic state of Indian hockey into limelight with his portrayal of a disgraced player who goes on to become a celebrated coach in the 2007 blockbuster ‘Chak De India’.Indian hockey players boycotted the preparatory camp ahead of next month’s World Cup over non-payment of dues on Friday.The players had earlier threatened to pull out of the ongoing national training camp in Pune if they were not paid their match fee for the recently concluded Champions Challenge I-Tournament in Argentina. Having made public their annoyance at the delay in payment, some senior players had written a letter to Hockey India President A K Mattoo, demanding that money be paid within seven days. The players said that on previous occasions they were paid money in advance but this time the fee has not been paid even after the conclusion of the tournament.