MSBF HIT BACK AT NSC

Melvin upset with council for painting ‘negative picture’

THE controversial saga over funding has reached boiling point as the Malaysian Snooker and Billiards Federation (MSBF) have taken the National Sports Council (NSC) to task for painting a negative picture of cue sports in their statement to Timesport on Tuesday.

NSC director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail not only touched on disciplinary issues among athletes but also gave the reasons MSBF do not have a training centre and a full-time programme in his statement.

While MSBF president Melvin Chia thanked NSC for their readiness to loan equipment, used during the 2017 Kuala Lumpur Sea Games, and also to cover the rental of a private club for training

purposes, he claimed that the council did not raise this in a recent meeting.

“No one from the NSC informed us about it. I suspect my outburst in the New Straits Times on Sunday forced them to commit to this.

“If yes, how much are they willing to fork out?

“It is all about timing. If we were informed earlier, it would have been easier to come up with a costing. Now, we have only about seven months to prepare our athletes for the Philippines Sea Games,” Melvin told Timesport yesterday.

Melvin also said the NSC are partly to be blamed for MSBF’s failure of not achieving the twogold medal target at the 2017 Sea Games.

They only won three bronze. “Firstly, MSBF requested for 12 events with five in snooker but it was cut down to two for the 2017 edition. Everyone knew we were stronger in snooker, and chances of winning gold would have been brighter had there been more events.

“Secondly, we had a team of athletes for the Sea Games, but the majority of the budget went to Rory Thor (for the UK Pro Tour), who subsequently did not perform well.

“Instead, MSBF were blamed for the Sea Games failure. Rory was poor during his events. He arrived here refusing to spar with his teammates on several occasions and everyone saw how bad he was.

“Only NSC knew how he was progressing in the UK. They were funding and also monitoring his progress. There was a private dealing between NSC and Rory bypassing the association,” he said.

Melvin is also surprised about NSC’s decision to not provide a full-time programme for cue sports.

“We submitted several requests over the years for a training centre in Bukit Jalil. We had a centre between 2002 and 2011. The programme was discontinued following the de-registration of the association. But when the association was reinstated (in 2013), we did not get our training centre back.

“Cue sports has not had a training centre for the last seven years for development. This is a problem as we cannot groom youngsters as they are not allowed into private snooker and pool centres.

“I only found out that the NSC were unwilling to fund a full-time programme for the sport by reading Shapawi’s reply to NST today (yesterday).

“I am also upset that NSC had raised the subject of indiscipline among our players when we had a training centre in Bukit Jalil.

“They were out until late at night to play in local tournaments. They had no choice as the budget was short to send them overseas regularly.

“Our athletes followed all the programmes strictly and none of them were asked to leave due to indiscipline.”

He also touched on Shapawi’s allegations that the council made a wasteful venture by renting a private club for the national trainees ahead of the 2017 Sea Games.

Shapawi claimed only one athlete reported for training while the rest were based at their respective clubs.

“We were training at the centre in Bukit Jalil where Rory was working. He claimed the rental directly from NSC without the knowledge of MSBF.

“Our then-coach Mike Russel was at the centre every day with the athletes.

“The centre’s appointment as a training centre was only made official two months prior to the Sea Games.”

However, Melvin confirmed the council had channelled RM3,640 to MSBF over the period of two years to cover their athletes’ allowances.

“The sum was hardly enough for anything. The budget to participate in one international tournament is between RM15,000 and RM20,000. And we could only afford to send them for one overseas event.”