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Shapawi: We don’t entertain foreign coaches who ask for the moon

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Sports Council (NSC) will not entertain foreign coaches with their big demands.

According to NSC director general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail, this was one of the reasons why a plan to hire American David Patrick as national athletics chief coach did not materialise.

Shapawi said they were slow in their process to offer the American the job because the latter was asking for something “extraordinary” to take up the job.

He did not elaborate on the details but it’s learnt that it’s related to his remuneration package.

The NSC chief was responding to an outburst by the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) president Datuk Karim Ibrahim, who took a swipe at the governing body for failing to get the services of Patrick despite agreeing to it in January.

“We (the NSC) offered David the job but he did not respond to it positively. We were not happy with his demand and were reluctant to use his services to train our sprinters,” said Shapawi.

“There is no point getting a foreign chief coach if local athletes are not keen to train under him. It will be a sheer waste of money.

“Furthermore, we have a good set of local coaches, who have proven themselves in producing good sprinters.

“We have our doubts whether our local coaches are even interested in having a foreigner as a chief coach.

“The local coaches have set up a good training foundation and we’ve to discuss with them before making a decision on hiring a new coach.”

Shapawi also questioned Karim’s intention in blowing the matter out of proportion - just before the national body’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) this year.

Karim had alleged the deal fell through because Shapawi did not follow up on the matter.

“It’s strange that I’ve to do the follow-up work while Karim, who is eager to hire this coach, is not doing his part by talking to the coach over the demand that he has made,” said Shapawi.

“Karim has highlighted this before the AGM this year. I guess he knows what he’s doing.

“NSC are ready to discuss any matters with the MAF at any time. They don’t have to use other channels to highlight their grouses,” added Shapawi.