PETALING JAYA: The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) will step into a new dimension through the separation between the parent body and the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM), which will be implemented in the next two to three months.
The separation will see BAM focusing on their duties as the national governing body while ABM will act as the national high-performance badminton centre.
BAM president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria said the separation was timely, taking into account the prevailing situation which demands a shift towards professionalism.
“Times have changed and demands change from us which, in terms of the performance of coaches, coaching directors and also the lineup of players, should be evaluated objectively by professionals,“ he told a press conference after chairing the BAM Council meeting and Annual General Meeting here today.
Mohamad Norza likened the separation to what happened between the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and the Malaysian Football League (MFL).
He said through the separation, all income from sponsors will continue to be channelled to ABM, while the stakeholders and sponsors will also be members of the board or the Steering Committee that will be established.
“We will have further discussions with Petronas because it is Petronas academy (Petronas-ABM), (so) we will try to leverage on Petronas’ experience in high-level performance, for example, Formula One (F1) is totally based on performance, KPI (key performance indicator), latest technology and sports equipment,” he said.
Elaborating, Mohamad Norza said BAM would maintain their responsibility of strengthening the development of badminton in all the states to ensure that the country does not have a shortage of talent pool in badminton.
In fact, he said, BAM would provide additional allocation to each state so that they could focus on producing more talented shuttlers, who would then have the opportunity to be absorbed into ABM.
“We will also reactivate the planning of having ABM by zone, so that whatever the template that is produced in ABM, it will later be duplicated in other parts of Malaysia,“ he said.
Mohamad Norza said that after the proposal paper on the separation is fully completed, it would be submitted to the BAM Council special meeting for approval. - Bernama
