Sports Academy and World Cup dream

July 12, 2006

Provide more sports facilities locally

Will Malaysia ever play in football's World Cup Finals? This is a dream of every Malaysian, but if we continue with the present policies in sports, we will never realise this dream.

We excelled in many sports before like badminton, hockey, athletics and football. Today we are lagging far behind in all every sport except badminton, even in that we are rapidly being overtaken by countries which were alien to the game not long ago. In squash and bowling we can count the number of players who have risen up to international excellence.

The government has come up with an ambitious plan to put our sportsman and sportswomen in par with others at international levels. This includes participating in the World Cup finals.
To realize this ambition, we are told that the government is going ahead with a plan to build a sports training centre in London at an estimated cost of RM490 million. .

According to Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Azalina Othman it will be no ordinary centre but a high performance sports training centre where our athletes will compete and learn sports skills in a more professional manner. In the final outcome the plan would turn them into truly professional athletes.

While we appreciate the government’s efforts to achieve excellence in sports, setting up a costly training centre in a foreign land is definitely not the right way. I can foresee it is doomed for failure, like many such projects locally and a mere waste of taxpayers’ money.

Who will be selected to undergo training at this centre in London? Will the selection be based merely on merit or some other criteria? Who will pay for expenses in traveling, food and lodging of these elite sportsmen and women?

RM490 million is a large sum of money. It would be better to use it to build numerous football fields, badminton courts and even sports complexes in smaller towns and kampongs all over the country, which badly lack these facilities. Many existing open fields which used to be favorite places of recreation for our youngsters have been eliminated in the name of development.

Majority of sports heroes usually come from the masses and not from the rich and wealthy segment of the population. Unless we tap the great potentials that exist in the masses we will not succeed in selecting the best to represent the nation.

Football and hockey tournaments and athletic meets at school and district levels that used to be very popular in the sixties and seventies were effective ways to select talented young players for the state and national teams. These competitions are unheard of in most small towns these days. In fact many of us were selected via these competitions for further training at state level. Similar tournaments were also organized for athletics, basketball, volleyball and others.

We do not need sophisticated and high-tech sports complexes. The single most important means of developing a sport and spot talented players is to take the game to the masses all over the country. Facilities must be made available to them freely or at costs affordable to them. Selection of the players must be solely on merit not on favoritism.

We have the money and the talent, all we need is sufficient dedicated and loyal leaders who are genuinely interested to bring honor and glory, not for themselves but, for the nation. Until we find these leaders, which appears to be a formidable task, we have to be contended being mere spectators, at the most organizers, of the football World Cup.

Dr.Chris Anthony