NEW DELHI, March 13: India may lose the right to host field hockey’s men’s World Cup in 2010 if the former champions do not stem their decline, the sport’s world governing body said on Thursday.

The eight-time gold medallists failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time after losing to Great Britain in the final of a six-nation tournament in Santiago, Chile, last Sunday.

The International Hockey Federation (FIH), worried at India’s falling standards, devised a “Promoting Indian Hockey” project last year to raise standards in the country’s national sport.

FIH president Els van Breda Vriesman warned Indian officials they could miss hosting the 2010 World Cup in New Delhi if the project was not implemented immediately.

“It has been made clear that the staging of the 2010 World Cup is related to the success of the project and the world body is still waiting for signs that things are really going to happen in India,” Vriesman said in a statement.

“The result [in Chile] shows that Indian hockey now needs to implement the Operational Plans which were provided nearly a year ago as part of the ‘Promoting Indian Hockey’ project, without any further delay.

“The FIH Executive Board will discuss further steps to be taken on continuing with the project and on the decision on the staging of the 2010 Men’s World Cup in New Delhi,” the statement said.

Indian Hockey Federation president Kunwar Pratap Gill played down Vriesman’s threat.“If the FIH wants to take away the World Cup, they are welcome to do so,” said Gill, the former police chief credited with ending Sikh militancy in Punjab in the 1980s.

“I do not think Indian hockey standards have fallen, just because we lost one match in Chile and failed to qualify for the Olympics.

“It is almost the same team that won the Asia Cup last year and we are the Asian champions in all age-group tournaments.

“Olympic qualifying rules were changed this year. If only we had won a medal at the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, we would have got a direct entry to the Beijing Olympics.

“That Doha loss hurt us badly but I think Indian hockey is on the right path,” a defiant Gill said.

India’s immediate task is to find a new national coach following Joaquim Carvalho’s resignation after the Chile tournament.

Since winning the last of their eight Olympic golds at the western-boycotted Moscow Games in 1980, India claimed just one major title when Dhanraj Pillay’s men took the Asian Games gold in Bangkok in 1998.

India finished seventh in the last two Olympics and were forced to qualify for Beijing after failing to win an Asian Games medal in Doha.—AFP