New Delhi: The special committee's recommendation to remove him as India's hockey coach did not come as a surprise to Paul van Ass, who said an "autocratic" Hockey India president Narinder Batra was just finding ways to officially sack him, after the on-field spat in Antwerp.

The nine-member committee headed by Harbinder Singh, formed to decide on his future, on Friday recommended that Van Ass, who had claimed that he has been fired following his altercation with Batra, should not be continued with as coach.

When contacted, Van Ass rued the weakness of the Indian system and said Batra owes him an apology for tarnishing his reputation. "I knew the decision already. I am not surprised. He (Batra) was just looking for ways to fire me and he did it. He should apologise for it (tarnishing my reputation)," Van Ass said from his home in Rotterdam.

"I won't call him a dictator, but he is an autocratic person. How can he single-handedly take all the decisions? How can he single-handedly fire me to please his ego? No one from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) has tried to contact me. I don't blame any individual, it is the weakness of the system," he said.

With the committee saying that he didn't even bother to submit his report of India's performance in the World League Semi-finals, Van Ass argued that he was not bound to submit the report as he was already conveyed about his ouster as India coach. "That's not my problem. They (HI) are now questioning me, but the they should be honest about the fact that they fired me just one week after the tournament.

"I want to make it clear that I wasn't required to submit the report, I wasn't in India because Batra fired me on July 10 and on July 13, I got a mail from Roelant (Oltmans) confirming my sacking," Vas Ass said. (PTI)