Umar Osman, the 400m gold medallist, is just 20 years old and it was his first SEA Games. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star
TRUTH be told, we’ve never taken the Youth and Sports Ministry seriously and neither have we provided comprehensive training and care for our sports persons. And yet, we expect miracles from them.
The most junior Member of Parliament is slotted for the ministry post, and it’s viewed as an insignificant position.
Even the Deputy Education or Deputy Finance Minister role seems to be more prestigious than a full Youth and Sports Minister.
So, it comes as no surprise that the Youth and Sports Ministry gets less than an RM1bil budget, which is among the lowest. The National Unity Ministry is probably in that category, too.
Of this amount, only RM394mil was allocated for sports, unfortunately.
It’s like saying national unity isn’t important or, while sports galvanises the nation, which politicians fail to, this is still the best budget that can be offered.
How many of our 33 million people are youth aged 18-40 and surely this large youth population also matters to the ministry.
Rubbing salt into the wound, Malaysia has changed the Youth and Sports Minister much faster than we dispose of our prime ministers.
In recent years, ex-Umno MP Khairy Jamaluddin held the post for 61 months, a tad over five years.
His successor didn’t fare so well. Syed Saddiq, the MP for Muar and Muda president, managed 20 months while Reezal Merican, the former MP for Kepala Batas, kept his job for 18 months.
Former Tambun MP and Bersatu deputy president Ahmad Faizal Azumu, popularly known as Peja, served for only 16 months.
As Malaysians would know by now, every successive minister wants to leave their mark by introducing some new programmes, and it’s always the ministry officials who are left to implement new set-ups, targets and KPIs. Imagine the disruption at the ministry for the last decades.
Current Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh, who is just five months into the job, blamed political instability for Malaysia’s poor performance at the recent South-East Asian (SEA) games.
She got hammered for her excuse. She could have phrased it better, but she isn’t entirely off the mark because she is right.
The entire ecosystem is rotting. Ask any sportswriter in the media, and they’ll be able to share what has gone wrong with sports in this country. A cup of coffee won’t be enough to hear the whole story.
It will include tales of underfunded sports associations needing politicians to provide patronage and money, among other things. Unfortunately, these lawmakers hang on to their posts like the associations belong to them and their bootlickers.
Then, there are the talented young ones, for example, who start their training at the badminton academy at 5am every morning, then head back to class like any schoolkid, and after years of training, aren’t even given the opportunity to compete overseas.
With no exposure and the chance to play competitively, it can sometimes mean being sent home with nothing to show.
Yeoh seems to have taken a gamble by letting new talents compete at the SEA Games.
We finished poorly in the gold count, but let’s hope in the long run, this strategy works. It’s uncertain how this plan will fare, and ultimately, we’ll just have another new Sports Minister who will enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labour.
In the Malaysian contingent, 63% of the athletes – or 427 of the 674-strong team – were below 23 years old. Out of these 427 Under-23 athletes, 222 won 18 gold, 21 silver and 66 bronze medals.
Around 62% of the team, or 423 athletes, made their debut at the Games, with 211 having podium finishes and contributing 12 gold, 20 silver and 46 bronze medals.
Sometimes, many of us miss the ray of hope in the sea of criticism. Umar Osman, the 400m gold medallist, is just 20 years old and it was his first SEA Games, while platform diving gold winner Lee Yiat Qing is merely 15 years old.
Windsurfer Muhammad Hafizin Mansor is 17 years old and got his first SEA Games gold medal at his first Games. Ng Jing Xuen, 15, won her first gold in golf.
As a die-hard Arsenal fan, I can accept the team finishing behind Manchester City with the latter’s more experienced and well-drilled players.
In contrast, Arsenal has the highest number of young players and, with lower wages, no less.
They can’t be expected to be English Premier League and Champions League winners overnight. It takes a while to put a title-challenging team together.
The experiences and lessons learned this year and the purchase of new experienced players will be necessary for the 2023/2024 season.
Arsenal and many neutral fans are disappointed that the Gunners slipped and drew in three games at the tail end of the season, which was costly to their title ambitions. However, no one gave Arsenal a ghost of a chance when the season started.
Now, that comes to the same point. If Malaysia wants to win, we must spend. Unfortunately, our country has no money for that.
According to reports, the Singapore government allocated S$464.49mil (RM1.6bil) for its sports programme while Thailand provided 800 million baht (RM106mil) for sports in 2023. Indonesia contributed Rp1.57 trillion (RM481.1mil) for its Sports and Youth Ministry in 2021.
Now, let’s be realistic, too. Malaysians love football, whether it’s the local or foreign leagues, but we’ll never make it big. Our physique is not built for top tier football.
We can win regionally, but the fact that we must keep reminiscing about our past glories and still talk of Mokhtar Dahari, Santokh Singh and Soh Chin Aun, heroes of the 1970s and 1980s, goes to show we haven’t produced any real football legends since.
It’s better for us to invest our limited resources in sports we can excel at, like badminton, squash, bowling, shooting, golf, table tennis, cycling and sailing.
All is fair in love and war. Surely we need more naturalised citizens to help us win. Look at Singapore, and even Cambodia.
And we need to pay for talents. Malaysian badminton coaches are helping the Japanese and South Koreans, earning between RM50,000 and RM100,000 a month.
This is how modern sports works. From paying top dollar for the best trainers and psychologists to giving our team mental strength and even having nutritionists prepare the right food for our athletes, we need proper financial support and resources.
We can’t put together a team in two months or less, to train and then send them off to the Sea Games.
The New Straits Times reported “as expected, it was a one-sided affair from the first whistle” where Malaysia lost 3-0 to Vietnam in the AFF Cup late last year.
Let’s be realistic – if Malaysia expects to excel, that will encompass proper training, planning and finances.
