It is reliably learnt that Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) Secretary General Maninderjit Singh has submitted his resignation to Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, the President of MHC on Friday, March 23.
The resignation is said to be effective immediately and it is believed that Tengku Abdullah has accepted the resignation of his loyal official and MHC Vice President Manjit Majid Abdullah, who enjoys a cordial relationship with the President, will assume running the administration affairs of MHC until a replacement is identified by Tengku Abdullah.
Efforts to seek confirmation from Mike, as he is fondly known, proved futile and the same was the case of Tengku Abdullah who did not respond to an email from this blogger. However several top officials have confirmed that indeed a resignation letter had been sent.
While some are speculating that Mike quit to assume responsibility for the failure of the national team to make it to London 2012, there is also the notion that he quit due to the fact that Malaysia had opted to pull out from the invitational tournament in Pakistan from April 9.
Malaysia it seems had confirmed participation but the fact that they failed to make it to London and the possibility of a new coaching set-up taking over, forced MHC to have a re-look and that was said to have irked Mike as he had given his assurance that Malaysia would participate.
However despite these speculations, it is understood that Mike resigned to pursue further studies, a fact that he had made known last October but was persuaded to stay on to ensure the merger of the MHF and MWHA went through without a hitch.
With two major tournaments on the horizon, the Asia Junior Cup and the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, it will be interesting to see how Manjit will manage the affairs of MHC given the fact that he is based in Johor Baru and has a fulltime job managing a golf club.
However attempts to talk to Manjit were unfruitful as he was said to be in Kuala Lumpur attending to some matters, most probably about MHC affairs.
Mike is the first Secretary in the history of MHF not to have completed his term. He was appointed as the General Manager of the MHF in July 2009 and went on to assume the position of Secretary of MHF in October 2010, the same time he took over the Secretary General position of MHC.
During his term Malaysia won the silver medal at the Asian Games and the Project 2013 won the Sultan Johor Cup.
