The Year In Review: NSC must get tough

Zolkples Embong (left), Ismail Sabri (top) and Azalina Othman.

THE pressure had been immense and no effort was made by National Sports Council (NSC) director general (DG) Datuk Zolkples Embong to hide his relief following Lee Chong Wei's silver medal effort in the Beijing Olympics.

Gold may have remained elusive but failure to win a medal would have meant returning home empty handed for a third consecutive Olympics and the backlash would have been worse compared to Athens 2004, which, among others, resulted in the NSC being "divorced" from the National Sports Institute.

Zolkples was not the DG during the Athens Games but he has been an integral part of the role NSC has played since the government took almost total charge of development starting with the Jaya '98 programme.

No doubt, there have been results with squash world champion Nicol David, the national tenpin bowlers, the lawn bowlers and, to a certain extent, the badminton players scoring numerous successes but that hasn't reduced the pressure on NSC.

As the Sports Ministry's funding arm for high performance sports, the NSC has to justify the millions that are spent annually and with public expectation high, Zolkples is in an unenviable position.
But this, and former NSC DG Datuk Mazlan Ahmad agrees, is a fallback from the Jaya '98 programme which, despite its success, resulted in a situation where most associations are fully dependent on financial support from the government.

While the associations remain in charge of their respective sports, it is NSC which comes under fire as it controls the purse strings but 10 years after the end of the Jaya '98 programme. It is time to ensure that the burden of delivering results is shared.

Since Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said's tenure as Sports Minister, the government has been stressing on the need for a rating system but two years after she first mentioned it, it is still not in place.

The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) has re-submitted the proposed rating system to Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and there shouldn't be any further delays.

If Ismail Sabri is still dissatisfied, the Sports Ministry should amend where it sees fit and the rating system should be off the ground in early 2009.

Further delays will only make associations complacent while NSC will have to continue shouldering the burden of ensuring Malaysia wins honours at the Asian and world levels.

Funding, and even Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is a firm advocate of this, should be on merit and honestly speaking, only a handful from the 19 associations who are in the potential Asian and world level group are working hard.

Badminton is one but the BA of Malaysia has to ensure its players are consistent as currently, only Chong Wei seems to be able to make the semi-finals and finals of major events on a regular basis.

Still, badminton is in a better position compared to squash, which only has Nicol to shout about, and NSC can't be providing the SRA of Malaysia funding similar to that of what BAM gets.

Cycling and archery, if anything, have perfected the art of spending public funding but seeing as results are forthcoming, they perhaps deserve more in the hope that their progression will climax with each winning a medal in the 2012 London Olympics.

The bottom line though should be that NSC shouldn't and mustn't take sole responsibility in the chase for honours.

That should be a burden shared by the associations, OCM and the NSI, whose divorce with NSC will be completed once the bill to make it a statutory body is passed by Parliament.

That will not only pave the way for NSI to obtain its own funding to hire staff but, hopefully, also put to an end the overlapping of responsibilities with NSC as currently, only coaching certification and coach licensing is under NSI while everything else is the NSC's responsibility and both parties should come to a compromise to ensure the National Coaching Board delivers what it is meant to -- quality coaches at all levels.

There has been tremendous resistance to the divorce of the NSC-NSI, the brainchild of Azalina, but even Ismail Sabri agrees that sports science has to play an integral part if Malaysia is to develop quality athletes and now that the separation is almost complete, the focus should be on moving forward.

NSI has scored some successes in getting the elite athletes to understand the importance of sports science -- Chong Wei and his coach Misbun Sidek are firm believers now -- but it needs more staff to cater for all levels as it doesn't make sense to educate athletes only when they reach the elite level.

Education must start from the grassroots and with NSI's satellite centres being launched nationwide, it is imperative that they are well-equipped with not only equipment but staff as well.

NSI is currently working with a skeleton crew and this resulted in the misunderstanding which saw Chong Wei competing in the Macau and Japan Opens without NSI support and this will happen again if new blood is not brought in.

Still, the NSI is moving, albeit slowly, forward but the same can't be said about the OCM.

It is an equal partner of the NSC and NSI when it comes to development but OCM seems happy with just being responsible for the selection of athletes for major Games.

It may not have the financial strength to fund development but OCM can and must encourage its affiliates to do more, especially in terms of being more self-reliant. The inaugural Youth Olympics will be held in Singapore in 2010 and OCM must challenge its affiliates to deliver and prove that they can do it on their own.