MALAYSIA must learn from other sporting nations on how national athletes are given a guarantee of proper living on reitrement, former national shuttler Goh Liu Ying said.

Goh, who announced her retirement on January 14, said the athletes need a retirement plan to enable them to live comfortably after giving so much to the nation.

“The players should be at ease and not worry about what life would be on retirement,” she said in an interview with The Malaysian Insight.

She said Malaysia needs to learn from countries like Japan, Taiwan and China – all nations with good badminton standing in global ranks – on their plans for retiring shuttlers.

“These countries have a series of security programmes,” she said.

One of them, she said, is to send the retiring players back to school to take up whatever courses they are interested in.

This will enable them to find work, including in sports medicine, if they want to continue to be in the sport, she said.

China’s retirement programme is also worth looking into, she said.

“When the players are playing, their salaries are paid by the province the players represent. On retirement, they have the option to serve in the provincial teams as coaches,” the 33-year-old said.

“The key is that these countries think of their players when their playing days are over. They are concerned about their well-being.”

Goh said she first thought of life after badminton when she was laid up for nearly a year after undergoing knee surgery in 2014.

“No one told us that our career in badminton would be very short. What is worse is, there is nothing to fall back on when we retire or are forced to retire due to injury,” she said.

“I saw many former players were in financial distress within a year or two on retirement.”

When she announced her retirement last month, Goh was no longer under the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) banner.

Goh and her mixed doubles partner, Chan Peng Soon, resigned as BAM players in 2018 and had grabbed their first title as professionals, the Thailand Masters, the following year.

She said upon moving away from BAM, she had to fully rely on sponsorship for her earnings.

This also resulted in her spending much time on social media to fulfil her obligations to her many sponsors.

However, many critics slammed her for spending too much time on social media, even suggesting that her performance on the court was affected by that.

“(But) players like us are a commodity that needs to be promoted,” she said.

“What the sponsors crave most is exposure we high-profile players can give.

“The national team players have no worries as they receive a fixed salary. That’s the difference between us and them, and why we are so prominent on social media.

“If I don’t have enough sponsorship, then it would be difficult for me to play as going to tournaments requires a lot of money.”

She also asked why Malaysian fans treated her differently from Danish men’s singles player and Olympic gold medallist Viktor Axelsen “who is also active in social media”.

Love-hate relationship

Goh also spoke about her on- and off-court relationship with Chan, who started their partnership as a mixed doubles pair in 2008.

She said even though they had spent 13 years as badminton partners, she was only now beginning to learn how to “properly” communicate with Chan.

“In all those years, we have had a sort of love-hate relationship,” she said.

“We are two totally different people with different personalities and ideas, and we are very opinionated which often put us in a collision course.

“So not surprisingly, we have a lot of fights on and off the court.”

Goh described her relationship with Chan as akin to a couple in an intimate relationship and do not know how to communicate with one another.

“The desire to win matches was what kept us together and drove us on,” she said.

“Although our ultimate goal was to win matches, that still did not stop us from our personal wars.”

Goh admitted that Chan “is not my type of guy” but had got stuck with him because of the sport.

She said finding the perfect partner is next to impossible in Malaysian badminton as the options are few.

She said their coach had to act as the intermediary when the two were not talking to one another when they had to draw up a game strategy.

Goh and Chan were once ranked No. 3 in the world and were considered by many as the best mixed doubles pair in the history of Malaysian badminton.

They won the silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

They also won a bronze medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, a silver medal at the 2015 SEA Games in Singapore and a silver in the 2010 Asian Championships in China. – February 11, 2023.