KUALA LUMPUR: The failure of Esports Malaysia Association (Esports Malaysia) to follow the correct procedure has resulted in the National Sports Council (NSC) not being able to channel the allocation for a Grand Final competition, last Saturday.
The tournament, an e-sport qualifying session to select representatives to the Philippines SEA Games in November, was held at a shopping mall in Shah Alam on April 29 to May 4.
NSC director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail in a statement today said Esports Malaysia (ESM) only submitted an application for the tournament on May 6, two days after the tournament ended.
“NSC can only channel the fund to sports associations if they can provide financial justifications along with a breakdown of expenditure that is appropriate with the programme being implemented,“ he said.
Ahmad Shapawi noted that NSC agreed to distribute RM750,000 for athletes selection at the state and national level in a meeting with Youth and Sports Ministry and the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) on April 15.
At the meeting, ESM informed that they could not continue to organise the national championships due to lack of sponsorship and to reduce the cost, NSC has proposed to ESM that the tournament to be held at Gymnasium 2 in NSC, but ESM chose to organise it at Central I-City which incurred higher spending.
“ESM made an announcement on the tournament on April 23, a week before the tournament took place and caused some selected state athletes to be unable to compete in the national level competition.
“They failed to submit a document to apply for the allocation until the national level championship,“ he said.
Hence, Ahmad Shapawi called for ESM to be more careful in issuing statements and focus on enhancing collaboration with all electronic sports industry players.
“As a new sporting body, ESM should be grateful for the government’s efforts in recognising the sport as a new sport which is important in the national sports development. They should concentrate on identifying a group of athletes who are capable of shining at the 2019 SEA Games and also improve their association administrative affairs,“ he said.
Before this, ESM revealed that it has yet to receive any allocation from Youth and Sports Ministry to hold exercise for the selection of e-sports athletes to the SEA Games 2019 even though these provisions are being promised to them. — Bernama
