CHANDIGARH: After losing the finals in the Premier Hockey League, Sher-e-Jalandhar suffered yet another big blow as the Indian Hockey Federation has slapped a 50 per cent fine on the prize money of Rs 15 lakh they had claimed for finishing runners-up to Orissa Steelers.

They have to blame themselves as they roughed up international umpire Satinder Sharma for awarding a penalty-corner goal which ultimately paved the way for Orissa Steelers to win 4-3 in the third match in the best-of-three finals.

Satinder had to rush to technical table for fear of his life as he was being manhandled by the Sher-E-Jalandhar players.

Punjab Governor Gen (Rtd) SF Rodrigues, who is also Administrator of Chandigarh,  expressed his deep concern over the incident.

Chandigarh Sports Director Inderjit Singh Sandhu said that Gen Rodrigues spoke to IHF president Kanwar Pal Singh Gill this morning and urged him initiate action against the erring players who created indiscipline. The IHF president slapped financial penalty of 50 per cent on the prize money Shers had won. According to IS Sandhu, the Punjab Governor also desired that the IHF officials must take necessary steps so that no such shameful incidents were reoccurred.

Announcing the fine on Tuesday, IHF Secretary General Jyothikumaran said "IHF strongly condemned the unruly and disgraceful behaviour shown by Sher-E-Jalandhar team in the fourth quarter in Monday's third and deciding final of the PHL III. This sort of behaviour can never be encouraged and therefore the IHF has decided to take strong punitive measures so that similar incidents are not repeated in future."

TheIHF secretary general said "it has been decided by the organising committee that 50 per cent of the total prize money will be deducted from Sher-E-Jalandhar team to set an example to others. The deducted amount would be added up in the total prize money to be disbursed  in the next edition of the PHL."

Jyothikumaran said that action against individual players involved in this or other such ugly incidents  would be taken as per the report given by the Tournament Director Shakeel Qureshi who has been asked to submit his report at the earliest. "With this action, signal will go in the right manner," hoped Jyothi Jyothikumaran.

Meanwhile, 15 players got Rs 1.20 lakh each in the third edition of the PHL. Thirty players received Rs 50,00 each and the next 30 players Rs 35,000 each. The remaining 30 players got Rs 20,000 each.

Twenty eight officials got Rs 35,000 each. The winning team Orissa Steelers got the higest prize money of Rs 40 lakh. Their captain DilipTirkey, who was declared the man of the tournament got Rs 1 lakh. Sher-E-Jalandhar who finished runners-up got Rs 15 lakh and their dashing forward Gagan Ajit Singh, who emerged the leading scorer with 15 goals was presented a cheque of Rs 1.5 lakh. Third position holders Bangalore Lions were rich by Rs 7.5 lakh in the highest prize money of the hockey tournament the world over. Besides, Lion of the Match got Rs 10,000 each each match.

It is learnt that Pakistani players who took part in the PHL got $ 3000 each as appearance money while other foreigners got $ 5,000 each. However, the organisers refused to disclose the appearance money for the foreign players.