AK Mattoo had sent his resignation to Suresh Kalmadi, president of Indian Olympics Association (IOA) but he had not received any letter of approval from the other side. Mattoo said, "I have submitted my resignation to Kalmadi and I now want to take retirement from sports administration. I have served for 40 years and it has been a long and fruitful innings."

According to the reports, Mattoo said that he has made up his mind and doesn’t want to be a part of the association anymore. On being asked if the allegation made against him is the chief reason of resigning from the post, he said, “Yes, it is one of the main reasons.” Mattoo did a job of negotiating with the hockey players and offered them the amount of Rs 25000 while the players were demanding for Rs 4.5 lakhs including match fee, incentives and other dues. This led to the dispute between hockey players and the Indian Sports Authority. Hockey players boycotted the World Cup Preparatory Camp in Pune. Highly depressed and distressed AK Mattoo resigned from the post.

However, FIH, the world governing body for the game, had made it mandatory for the Hockey India to complete the election formalities before the World Cup while granting the mega event to India. Mattoo may however, be asked to continue till the election formalities are over since it would be difficult for a new person to understand the issues at such a late stage.