Foul!

National cager Jacky Ng made an appointment with a doctor at the National Sports Institute on June 24 - but he never showed up. Such was the revelation made by NSI chief executive officer Dr Ramlan Aziz, as reported in The Malay Mail today. Jacky was substituted and was cheering on the national team from the bench as they played a local club in Jinjiang, China before he collapsed and died on Sunday. He was 25. Meanwhile, sports officials pleaded to religious authorities not to kill sports after Penang Mufti Hassan Ahmad suggested that the participation of female Muslims in swimming and gymnastics be discussed during the National Fatwa Council committee meeting in September - as reported here . Even Youth and Sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin requested all parties to be sensible and logical about this matter. Among female Muslim athletes who have done the nation proud are gymnasts Farah Ann Abdul Hadi ( pic ), her sister synchronised swimmer Katrina Ann, gymnasts Durratun Nasi...

It was a pleasant surprise meeting with a former national basketball player while having lunch at the famous Yong Tau Foo restaurant in the heart of Pudu yesterday. Immediately after exchanging pleasantries with the player, who is now part of the national team coaching staff, the conversation naturally went to the national basketball scene. "We are preparing for the (year-end) SEA Games (in Myanmar). Other than that it is a quiet year," the coach said. "Sadly, we are really tight with funds. Basketball has no money...no funding." What about the Petronas deal, I asked. "Petronas is only sponsoring the junior programme. The senior teams (men and women) are left to scout for their own funding." Just before I left, I assured the former player-who-turned-coach that I will visit Maba House soon. Petronas has been pumping in money since the Rakan Sukan programme in the 1990s. While the programme is no longer in existence, the oil giants have con...

THE National Sports Council (NSC) are seen to be “generous” in funding and are too fixated on winning medals. The findings of the report – A study of two successful Australian Sports: Swimming and Basketball as a model for developing and building Malaysia’s national sports associations – compiled by Australians Dr John Williams and Peter de Souza also revealed that there is lack of professional management within the NSAs and lack of funding at the grassroots. The study, which was conducted last month, was supported by the Commonwealth of Australia through the Australia-Malaysia Institute (AMI) and the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM).  The report compared the Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia (Asum) and the Malaysian Basketball Association (Maba) with the Swimming Australia Limited (SAL) and Basketball Australia (BA) respectively. On the subject of pathways for coaches (page 5), the report read; “The NSC needs to address this issue. At present it has fallen i...

The National Basketball Association (NBA) in the USA is facing a lockout as legal suits are being filed in the courts. For the uninitiated, this article by Bettor.com states: The lockout began on July 1 st due to the expiration of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA. NBA owners and NBA Commissioner David Stern want to make sweeping changes in the new CBA, but the players are vehemently opposing them. The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) filed a complaint against the league on the charge of negotiating in bad faith and the league itself recently sued the union in a federal court. Professional set ups include players having the right to voice out. It also mean athletes have the right to decide on the terms and agreements of their contracts. There is a union. In Malaysia, it's totally different. Athletes behave naively and allow officials - who are merely administrators - to dictate their lives. So if such a situation did happen,...