By SUNIL Sonkar

Chandigarh, Feb. 20 — Another controversy mounted up for the Indian hockey on Saturday with organisers of a charity event claiming that a demand of Rs 5 crore has been made by the players to feature in the matches. However, the national team members have denied the allegation.

Member of the organiser committee of AMR foundation, Hardeep Sandhu, claimed that the players who are led by Prabhjot Singh, Deepak Thaukar and Rajpal Singh were demanding Rs 5 crore for playing the four charity matches. The matches will be of 15 minutes each and it will also feature Bollywood and TV stars.

Hardeep Sandhu said,”AMR foundation had roped in 22 players to feature in four exhibition matches with Bollywood and TV stars but when yesterday one of the representatives of the organisers handed them the flight tickets from New Delhi to Chandigarh, a group of players told they don’t want these tickets as they are not gaining anything.”

Sandhu also added, “Players said they were expecting Rs 4 to 5 crore from sponsorship. Now that not much sponsors are coming, they refused to play. The organisers are very upset as despite written agreement they are backing out.”

The allegations, however, has been rubbished by Prabhjot, Rajpal and Deepak.

Rajpal said, “This is absolutely baseless. It baffles me why organisers are making such allegations at this moment. I smell a conspiracy here. There is no demand of money, we know it is a charity match.”