K.M. Boopathy
boopathy@nst.com.my
THE National Sports Council (NSC) will utilise the RM30 million allocated under the 2012 budget entirely on development to create a new pool of world class athletes for the 2016 Olympics.
NSC director general Datuk Zolkples Embong was grateful to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for approving specific funding for development, which means efforts to groom future champions can start even before next year's London Olympics.
Zolkples said priority will be given to the 19 core sports and the RM30 million will be utilised to send athletes for more international tournaments, recruit quality coaches, additional training centres, continuity in coaches' education and other important aspects to ensure Malaysia can aim for gold in the 2016 Olympics.
"The prime minister is an avid supporter of sports and has often spoken about giving emphasis to development. He has now given us what we need in order to boost development," said Zolkples in Bukit Jalil yesterday.
"We are grateful for what he has done as the RM30 million will help us take development to the next level, where we will start grooming our talents to become world class athletes.
"Lack of funding for development actually forced us to cut down on our funding to the 19 core sports for a few years but now, we can give stronger backing and start building towards the 2016 Olympics and also other major events in the four-year period.
"With better financial backing, we can now expose the younger athletes to more international events, rope in quality coaches, have more training centres and other aspects of development at national and state levels.
"The young athletes have already started producing results but we need to create a bigger pool and the RM30 million will enable us to do so.
"In fact, we had budgeted RM37 million for development purposes and I need to find ways to raise the additional RM7 million."
Sports like archery, badminton, bowling, cycling and diving are expected to receive the bulk of the funding but Zolkples assured that the 19 sports will receive allocations based on their programmes.
In Friday's budget, RM95 million was allocated with RM55 million to be utilised under the "sports for all banner" where 150 multi-purpose futsal arenas and 30 artificial pitches will be built across the country to boost football development.
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