NEW DELHI: A fairly successful stint has ended on a rather bitter note and despite the talk of an expired contract, PR Sreejesh' exit as India's junior men's hockey coach does not seem to be a straightforward call.
The two-time Olympic bronze-medallist's tenure ended just 17 months into the job following the end of his contract after guiding India to a bronze medal finish at the Junior World Cup in Chennai and Madurai last year.
Sreejesh re-applied for the job but the goalkeeping stalwart was ignored. On Thursday, the Hockey India officially appointed decorated Frenchman Frederic Soyez as the junior men's team coach.
The national body maintains that there was nothing sinister to be read in its decision to not renew Sreejesh's contract.
But the celebrated former goalkeeper did not hold back when he took to the social media to say that the national body had ignored him to accommodate a foreign coach being demanded by senior men's coach Craig Fulton.
Caught in the arguments and counter-arguments are the players and when PTI reached out to a few of them, it was learnt that there was a level of dissatisfaction as well.
"Some players of the junior team were not happy with Sreejesh's working style, they couldn't reach him when needed over phone when camps were not in progress," a well-placed source told PTI.
However, another source said Sreejesh was available whenever needed and his record as a coach was proof enough. During his tenure India won five medals in as many tournaments.
But Hockey India argued that the decision to let him go was taken considering long-term vision of building a sustainable high-performance ecosystem aligned with India's ambitions of hosting the 2036 Olympic Games.
"We have not fired Sreejesh. His contract expired in December 2025 and we followed the due process of and advertised for the position. He also applied and applicants were short-listed and finalised as per a proper selection process basis merit," said HI President Dilip Tirkey.
"We never wanted him to come out of the coaching programme, we offered him to lead the developmental programme, India A and beyond that. Besides that we offered him to guide our goalkeepers at the national level with his vast experience, but he refused," he asserted.
"But the doors are always open for him and other Indian coaches." Sreejesh's transition from an Olympic medal-winning goalkeeper to junior India coach was a rare privilege, an appointment made straight from the field with zero formal coaching experience.
Having mostly played under foreign coaches -- Roelant Oltmans, Terry Walsh, Graham Reid, and Craig Fulton -- it was also puzzling to witness the India vs Foreign coach narrative from Sreejesh in his social media outburst, where he stated that the decision to appoint a foreign coach for junior side was taken at the behest of Fulton.
But Tirkey vehemently denied that claim.
"We have never conveyed to him that the chief coach of the men's team has given a preference to appoint a foreign coach for the junior side. As a federation, we are collectively working towards the vision of our government to build a pathway towards 2036 and a big part of that process is to develop our Indian coaching talent." Sreejesh is also the mentor and Director of Hockey India League franchise Delhi SG Pipers.