OLYMPIC Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Norza Zakaria must be incredibly ambitious or utterly detached from reality. His latest proposal for Malaysia to host a “once in a life-time opportunity” Commonwealth Games 2026 is dumbfounding to say the least (recall that Malaysia last hosted the quadrennial event in 1998).
How does a country prepare from scratch in two years to host the biggest sporting spectacle after the Olympics when many hosting nations take up to over a decade to plan and execute such a Herculean task?
What makes Norza think we can pull off jobs like getting sporting venues such as stadiums and athletes’ accommodation ready when the task of repairing a simple pothole had to be undertaken by private citizens using their own money?
Jalan berlubang sampai ada penunggang motor jatuh. Dh adu kpd Adun Taman Sentosa Klang tetap tiada tindakan. Akhirnya org awam baiki dgn duit sendiri !!
Apa gunanya ada kerajaan mcm ni? pic.twitter.com/9UNjOT2VUZ
— Naratif Rakyat 🇲🇾 (@NaratifRakyat) January 9, 2024
And why should Malaysia which is already burdened with RM1.5 tril in debts rush in to replace the Game’s original host, Victoria, (Australia) which pulled out due to ballooning hosting costs?
Norza’s proposal for Malaysia to host the quadrennial event among territories of the former British Empire, is all the more absurd considering that the Deputy Youth and Sports Minister told the Dewan Rakyat last week that Malaysia has no plans to host the Thomas Cup in 2026.
This is in line with the Badminton Association of Malaysia’s (BAM) decision not to host the games for now, announced deputy minister Adam Adli. Incidentally, BAM is also headed by Norza! It boggles the mind why Norza thinks we can host the Commonwealth Games but not the much smaller scale Thomas Cup – both in 2026.
Perhaps the money that would have been spent on hosting the Commonwealth Games 2026 could have been channelled towards raising the standards of local sporting standards first.
An important aspect of lifting sporting standards involves grassroots sporting programmes to identify talents such as at the Malaysia Games (SUKMA) level.
But with some states banning female athletes from participating in gymnastics over non-syariah compliant attire, our sporting talent pool might just shrink.
So, it would be better for us to iron out these matters internally first before setting our sights on hosting an international sporting event. The last thing we want is to introduce a “killswitch” in the Commonwealth Games due to “improper” athletes’ attire.
The “killswitch” was first deployed in Malaysia at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium during the Coldplay concert last year to stop the performance in the event that any guidelines were broken.
This came following another concert last year where two male band members of The 1975 kissed while performing at the Sepang International Circuit.
So, unless we sort out issues like boosting our sporting standards and athletes’ attire, it’s best that we sit out of hosting the Commonwealth Games 2026. Otherwise, we might just be garlanded with the gold medal in “global laughing stock”. – March 12, 2024
