ATHLETES, including former national heroes, trying to juggle sporting success with a career can now get an education via the government’s one-stop-centre initiative launched at the end of this month.

Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman told The Malaysian Insight that the centre aims to take care of athletes’ welfare and will tie up with 20 universities to provide sportsmen with an education while grooming their sporting talents. 

These institutions will provide scholarships and flexible credit hours, among others.

“I put great emphasis on it because I want more young athletes to be given scholarships, flexibility in study hours so that apart from becoming athletes, they will also get a degree or diploma,” Syed Saddiq said.

With only six tie-ups for starters, the ministry has secured 14 more universities in less than a year.

“For example, UniKL (University of Kuala Lumpur) wants to specialise in hockey. They have a beautiful hockey pitch, they’ve hired a few hockey coaches. 

“So now they want to get the best Malaysian hockey players to study in UniKL while playing for UniKL because UniKl is No.1.”

UniKL has signed an agreement with the National Sports Council (NSC) so that hockey players who are school leavers can further their studies at the university. 

These students will receive scholarships or a good tuition scheme, have their expenses covered and given flexibility to focus on both sports and studies.

However, the arrangement is unique to each university, since each institution prioritises a particular sport. 

Syed Saddiq said such programmes are helpful because they provide scholarship, funding, good training ground for athletes to train and flexible study hours.

As for former athletes, they, too, can secure coaching opportunities and take up a course if they want to, he said. 

“With more universities collaborating with us, they need professionals to coach their teams.”

Former athletes will be matched to suitable coaching jobs at partnering universities. 

Welfare of ex-athletes

Syed Saddiq said at a recent cabinet meeting, the government approved the special health scheme for former athletes registered with Yayasan Kebajikan Atlet Kebangsaan (Yakeb).

The government will bear fully their healthcare expenses, he said.

Previously, their healthcare expenses were not covered, although medical bills could be as high as RM3 million to RM10 million. 

Yakeb also secured additional funding of RM3 million from the government.

“I care a lot about athletes’ welfare, not because they are Malaysian heroes and heroines, but if we don’t take care of their welfare, it will disrupt Malaysia’s ability to groom young athletes to climb up because that sends a negative signal to others.

“If they see ex-athletes not taken care of, this will be less an incentive for people to invest in sports. There is less incentive for this young person, who is 15 years old, to dedicate his life to a particular sport that he knows he has no future.

“The parents themselves would not want to send their children to sports schools.”

The ministry has also been meeting with sports associations and current and former athletes, especially through its open day on Thursdays.

This, said the youngest minister, is to enable them to have a direct line of communication with him.

Refining podium programme

Putrajaya has also fine-tuned and refined the podium programme introduced by the past administration.

The programme, launched in 2016 by former youth and sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin, with the aim of securing gold medals in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, included events with the potential for a podium finish.

It was previously helmed by the National Sports Institute but has now been transferred to the NSC. The tier system was recently restructured by Syed Saddiq.

Currently, there are 645 national athletes involved in the podium programme, comprising 503 able-bodied athletes and 142 para athletes.

The audit report shows that its accounts are in the red, while NSC is facing debt woes from the 2017 Sea Games held in Kuala Lumpur almost two year ago.

“Even for the podium programme, the audit report was in the negative. The money that should have been allocated for athletes’ development was spent on other reasons. When we inherited it, there were problems which we had to resolve.”

Besides the podium programme, there are also kita juara and pelapis programmes which cover sporting events based on their importance.

Syed Saddiq said the podium programme, which used to focus on the Olympics, now includes other major sporting events, such as the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Sea Games. 

“The podium programme continues and there is a great emphasis on young athletes and we have restored the allowances.”

The government has taken into account grouses on allowances. 

“Whether you get gold, silver or bronze, you will get RM7,500. If you stand on the podium at the Olympics, you get RM6,500 and Asian Games, Sea Games.”

The ministry has now secured an RM118 million allocation for training programmes. 

The money will be channelled towards the development of young athletes. 

The ministry has also gone all out to secure more corporate sponsorship to fund athlete development.

The corporate sponsorship structure has also been reformed so that instead of handing the funds on the ministry’s behest, government-linked companies can also participate in a sponsored programme, with less conditions. – March 21, 2019.