Watching the men's badminton final at Beijing Olympic was disheartening last nite as our shuttler fell short of the gold medal that has been so elusive for so many years. Despite that, we have to congratulate Chong Wei for his effort, maybe next time he will fare better.
Sometimes i wonder, why other countries with less government support, subsidies and facilities fared better and won more medals than Malaysia. Countries from Africa and Carribean of late produced world class athletes. What went wrong? Various programmes and overseas training were carried out but the results did not reflect the amount of tax payers money spent on them.
I think the root of the problems came from mismanagement of our human resources right from the school age up to the professional levels. In school, kids were taught to concentrate more on obtaining more A's by parents as that will lead to better future. Even during their spare time and school holiday kids were sent to more tuition classes so they are at par or better than their classmates. Parents are apprehensive when their kids spend some time in the fields playing soccer or running around with other kids as they consider it as a waste of time. Adding to that, more and more public playing grounds were converted into commercial centers in their drive to make more money. Kids will eventually lose motivation to play and involved in sports and some of them turn to video games of simulated sports. Parents perceived career in sports as not really very promising. It will not guarantee them big house and big cars unless they made it to the big time like Nicol David or Shalin Zulkifli to name a few.
But i think one of the main reasons of Malaysia's failure in international stage is the involvement of politicians in sport associations. These politicians who they themselves never played any of the sport of which they become presidents in the association, have used the association as the ticket to glory which can enhance their political careers. Failure of the association will reflect bad on them and their political careers, so they demand instant success overnight and keep changing the policies regularly to achieve their agenda. They will distant themselves from any failure and blame the coach and players for poor show. A lot of times, the poor coach was not given a free hand at selecting the right player and tactics as there were interfearance by the Management. Some of the sports association do not have enough budget for proper training as the lack sponsors. Sponsors usually link to political connections in Malaysia.
The latest decision in the Malaysia Super League policy of not allowing foreign players to be fielded in order to develop the local players is a joke. This issue had cropped up before just to be reversed as the attendance at the stadiums began to drop. This search for an instant fix will not work as we need to develop a comprehensive programmes involving our young ones from the tender age like is being done in many countries. Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool to name a few, have a youth development programme to create an second and third liner players for preparation to EPL level. These programmes involves massive cost and time as you cannot produce champions overnight. They do not have politicians running around screwing things up and the whole thing is being run professionally like a business entity. Players and sportsman welfare need to be looked after as their concentration is important during any competition. In Malaysia, unpaid players' salaries by the Management is not uncommon. This happens despite the associations getting money from FAM yearly and get part of the gate collections in every game.
But Malaysians no need to be despair, i think there is still a chance for our country to get gold medals at the Olympics, but only if Malaysia hosts the event and add new events for best politicians in sports, most controversial politicians, best political party, best corruption cases ever and best sports event host ever. We seem to excell in these areas despite not much practicing, i dont know why?
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