The Indian Hockey Federation on Tuesday deferred a decision on coach Gerhard Rach, who was widely expected to be shown the exit door, leaving the country's first ever foreign coach to wait till the middle of January to know his fate.

Rach met IHF President K P S Gill in New Delhi this afternoon amid speculation that he would be given the marching orders for his failure in changing the team's fortunes but his future was not discussed during the 30-minute one-to-one.

Gill asked Rach to meet him after he returned from Germany in the middle of January for further discussions.

"I had a one-to-one with the IHF chief during which we talked about the performance in the Champions Trophy. He said we must speak with a free mind on a later date since there is a lot of media pressure now. There was no discussion on my future," Rach told PTI after the meeting.

Rach, who did not sign any formal contract with IHF but worked on an agreement till the Champions Trophy, had recently said that he had received a message from the IHF, which claimed that the government was not happy with his performance.

Although Gill has asked Rach to meet him next month, the IHF is free to appoint a new coach.

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Rach would leave for Germany tonight and return on January 11. Rach, who took over from Rajinder Singh just two weeks before Olympics, has come under severe criticism for the team's failure to put up a fight at the highest level.

India's fourth place finish in the recently concluded Champions Trophy in Lahore intensified the clamor for his ouster.

"Gill agreed that I was under a lot of pressure to deliver in the Champions Trophy," Rach said referring to India's performance in the elite six-nation competition where they won just one out of six matches to finish fourth.

Under Rach, India finished a dismal seventh in the Athens Olympics and lost the eight-match Test series against Pakistan 2-4 before their medal-less finish in Lahore.