FIH rejects India's protest

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Saturday threw out India's protest against the umpiring during their 2-1 defeat by New Zealand which knocked the former champions out of the Olympics.
Wiert Doyer of the Netherlands, the FIH's technical delegate at the competition, said he did not agree with India's assertion that the fourth penalty corner taken in succession after the final hooter was invalid.
New Zealand's Hayden Shaw found the target with the fourth hit to leave India with their third defeat in four matches and out of the race for the semi-finals.
The Indians argued that the match was over once the third penalty corner was taken and umpire Ray O'Connor of Ireland had signalled the end of the game.
But the umpire at the other end, Xavier Adell of Spain, overruled his colleague and ordered a fourth hit because the ball had come off Indian defender Dilip Tirkey's foot after the third attempt.
"Rules state that the exercise of taking penalty corners ends only after the ball has gone out of play and a subsequent corner is not awarded," Doyer said.
"In this case play had not ended because one of the umpires signalled another penalty corner to be taken. So I cannot consider the protest."
India's German coach Gerhard Rach said the Indian Hockey Federation, who paid 500 euros for lodging the protest, should not have undertaken the exercise.
"Of course we were cheated by the umpires but there was no point in protesting," Rach told AFP. "Protests are never upheld.
"By making a protest, we have only donated 500 euros to the International Hockey Federation. "That is big money which could have been used to develop the game in India."
New Zealand coach Kevin Towns said he too would not have protested under similar circumstances.
"The New Zealand Hockey Association does not have that kind of money to give away," Towns said.
India, who won the last of their eight gold medals at the western-boycotted Moscow Games in 1980, face Argentina in their last match on Monday before going into the classification games. India finished seventh at Sydney four years ago.