New Delhi, May 24 Hockey India has inducted 126 new umpires and technical officials into its panel, making them eligible to officiate in domestic tournaments in the sub-junior and junior categories.

The umpires, and technical officials, including judges, were selected after two sets of online workshops conducted between September 2020 to March this year.

A total of 60 Judges (21 female and 39 male) have been added to the list, besides 66 umpires (16 female and 50 male).

The selected candidates in the Potential List have become eligible to be appointed for the upcoming Hockey India sanctioned Sub-Junior and Junior category tournaments.

They will also be opportunities to attend the ongoing Asian Hockey Federation Online Education Workshops.

The 126 candidates have been shortlisted from a list of 227 who were a part of the induction program (124 candidates in 2020 and 103 candidates in 2021).

The 227 candidates were selected through the induction program as per HI’s eligibility criteria after they were nominated by their respective state member unit.

The induction program for both umpires and technical officials are divided into three levels.

According to a HI statement, level 1 sessions are designed to provide the candidates basic knowledge of the latest FIH Rules and Regulations of the game.

“In order to achieve Level 2, a candidate has to pass an online test based on the Level 1 sessions attended earlier.

“Level 3 sessions are based on FIH General Tournament Regulations, FIH guidelines for fitness of umpires, information on match reports and statistics for technical officials (judges), HI grading guidelines, importance of performance feedback reports and various other operational knowledge,” the statement read. News source: PTI