Sardar Singh candidate for FIH Athletes' Committee elections

Lausanne, April 9 (IANS) India captain Sardar Singh is among the 15 male candidates for the Athletes’ Committee elections of the international hockey federation (FIH).

A total of six women and 15 men make up the candidate list for the inaugural FIH Athletes’ Committee elections set to take place during the World Cup from May 31 to June 15 in The Hague.

While the committee already exists, this will be the first time that four of the eight seats will be elected by athletes. Two women and two men will be elected during the World Cup while the remaining four will be appointed by the FIH Executive Board in March 2015.

The 21 candidates represent all five continents with seven of the 21 being goalkeepers and four current committee members. The most experienced candidate is Pakistan’s Waseem Ahmed, who boasts over 420 caps, while five others have more than 290 caps to their name, showcasing the quality of this year’s candidates.

Six are former players while the remainder are still competing for their country. Every national association had the opportunity to nominate a candidate.

“With Australian legend Renita Garrard as the chair, we started the build-up of this committee in 2007. I became chair in 2010 and have been fortunate to see a lot of progress. Input from our athletes is critical. They are our most important asset,” chair of the athletes’ committee Michael Green said.

“Several of this year’s candidates are high performance, high profile players and there is a good age representation. When I was representing Germany, it was impossible to think about doing this at the same time but this younger generation is playing and wants to be a part of change as well.”

The four seats elected at the World Cup will be announced June 12.

The following is the list of candidates:

Female: Marsha Cox (RSA), Rachel Dawson (USA), Sanaz Heidari (IRI), Anne Panter (ENG), Beth SMITH (NZL), Yimeng Zhang (CHN).

Male: Waseem Ahmed (PAK), Paolo Cane (ITA), Liam de Young (AUS), Niclas Franzen (SWE), Santi Freiza (ESP), Moritz Furste (GER), David Harte (IRL), David Kettle (WAL), Henri Lhomme (FRA), Jiwa Mohan (MAS), Filip Neusser (CZE), Xavier Reckininger (BEL), Scott Sandison (CAN), Sardar Singh (IND), Robert van der Horst (NED).