Elena Norman, marketing consultant turned CEO of Hockey India, resigned from her post after 13 years at the helm of one of the most powerful (and symbolically important) sporting bodies in the country. On the face of it, that's a pretty normal thing: CEOs, especially long serving ones, resign all the time and everyone just kind of moves on. But when it comes hot on the heels of the resignation of the women's team coach and surrounded by allegations of non-payment of salary and a "suffocating" work environment... there's nothing normal about that.
Here's why Norman's resignation is a pretty big deal for Indian sport:
The track record
As the first CEO of Hockey India, Norman's track record speaks for itself.
There are the tangible things: at the top level, during her reign, both the men's and women's teams enjoyed the kind of success you used to read about in history books. In Tokyo 2021, the men claimed bronze, an Olympic medal in India's most treasured Olympic sport after more than four decades. At the same Olympics, the women finished a historic fourth, after having qualified to the Games for the first time in 36 years. Norman was key, especially for the latter, where she ensured women's hockey received more than just token support from the federation.
In her time as CEO, HI also launched the Hockey India League, and while it was discontinued, it's revival is imminent. She also played her part in making India the centre of the wider hockey universe: a fact backed by India hosting back-to-back World Cups in 2018 and 2023 (the first time any country had hosted successive WCs).
But what she did extended beyond the trophy case, beyond the tangible. Norman helped professionalise an institution that had been decaying in a corner, wallowing in historical grandeur and self-pity and petty politics. All the tangible benefits we see today were a result of this hard-nosed drive to make a structure where earlier there was none (or very little).
There are still a lot of gaps, but Hockey India has become a better run institution -- and the sport itself is far healthier, far more inclusive -- after her 13 years at the top.
The context: as a woman in Indian sport
Janneke Schopman, just before she resigned, had said, "I come from a culture where women are respected and valued. I don't feel that here.... For me, coming from the Netherlands and coming from the USA, this country is extremely difficult as a woman. Coming from a culture, where you have an opinion and are valued for it, it's really hard."
It is in this context that we must view Norman's reign.
To have absolute power, first alongside Narinder Batra and then Dilip Tirkey, and to have the ability to use that power is pretty rare for a woman in Indian sport. Sure, the Indian Olympic Association president now maybe a woman, but PT Usha and the IOA are supervisors... the job of a federation CEO is a lot more hands-on. And no other major sporting federation has even come close to giving a woman the keys to their kingdom. To have a women coach (for either a men's or a women's senior team) is in itself pretty rare, a woman CEO, a super-boss who'll handle the entire federation's day-to-day affairs and make overarching decisions? Pshaw!
Norman's success speaks volumes, and begs the question: why are there no women figures at the top of Indian sport?
The context II: women's hockey
Before Norman's time, the Indian women's hockey team was treated as a sideshow. The Hindi movie Chak De may be entirely fictional and not a bit exaggerated, but the feelings espoused in the beginning of the movie vis-à-vis treatment of the team (as opposed to the men's) was pretty spot on. Women in hockey were second-class citizens and the fight to become recognised has been a hard one. Performance-wise too, it's been a leap. To get to a stage in 2024, where we now consider their non-qualification to the Olympics a shocking, unacceptable result and not just the norm has been a long journey.
What happens now, though? How will HI prevent the hockey team regressing to pre-Tokyo levels of performance, to pre-Norman levels of indifference? These are important concerns that must be addressed swiftly by the powers that be.
The timing
For any Olympic sport, Olympic year is the most important of them all: it's what you work towards and work for. Ever since Tokyo 2021 ended, everything any sporting federation has done is keeping Paris 2024 in mind and Hockey India are no different.
So, with the Olympics just five months away, why have such a drastic change at the top of one of the most important Olympic sports in India? 13 years is a long time, yes, and change is not always bad, but surely it could have waited a few months till the conclusion of the biggest event there is?
The big question: Is there something wrong with Indian hockey?
While pretty politics and Indian sports are inseparable, Norman's quotes to PTI after her resignation paint an ugly picture: "It was getting tough to deliver in the fight between two factions," she said. "The environment was becoming suffocating. There are two factions in Hockey India. There is [President] Dilip Tirkey and I and there is [Secretary] Bholanath Singh, [Executive Director] Cdr. R K Srivastava and [Treasurer] Sekar J Manoharan."
The dark ages of Indian hockey are not so far behind us that we can look at these quotes and merely shrug them away as #JustIndianSportThings.
What's equally concerning, though, is the allegation of non-payment of salaries. Hockey India is a well-funded organization that has the full heft of both the central government and the state government of Odisha (besides Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu in bits, now) behind it. If they cannot afford to pay their top employee, how bad are things financially? Alternatively, if power politics can stall payment of salaries at the very top, how empowered, how safe from retribution, are those that work further down the ladder?