Two initiatives for athletes next year
KUALA LUMPUR: The Youth and Sports Ministry is planning to introduce two initiatives for athletes next year.
One initiative is to provide jobs, while the other is a health protection programme.
Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Steven Sim said the ministry was looking into a pilot project with 10 private companies for jobs for athletes under the National Sports Council (NSC).
“The private companies are large organisations in the banking, information technology and automotive sectors.
“The athletes will work between 10 and 15 hours.
“However, we still need to work on allowances and salaries. For example, in badminton, athletes train between three and six hours a day.
“This means that after training, they are free to work,” he said after checks on an athlete session at the Malaysian Badminton Academy in Bukit Kiara here.
Sim said the ministry was concerned about the future of athletes once they retired.
“We don’t want our athletes to be caught in a dilemma.
“We don’t want them, when they take part in competitions, to worry about their future once they retire.
“The government is helping them not just to win gold medals.”
He said the health protection programme would be done via NSC and would be expanded to cover athletes and former athletes.
“Among the biggest expenditures of the National Athletes Welfare Foundation is medical expenditure.
“Once this initiative is in place, a huge burden will be taken off the foundation.”