BAM is an independent sports organization, all the terms and conditions of the training programme and the programme itself must follow international standard and according to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to have its international recognition and to ensure that their players can be enrolled to all international sports events.
Recently we have seen that a lot of existing junior and senior badminton players in Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) received a termination letter from The Management of BAM saying that they will be discontinued their training programme in BAM without a relevant reason.
Junior badminton player in BAM aged between 12-19 years old and they have been selected to join the association through Talent Identification (TID) from all the states in Malaysia. Once they are selected, they have to let go their studies in ordinary schools and enrolled into BAM’s training programme and their education will continue in the International School provided by the association.
Once selected, the player is briefed by the association and they need to sign the agreement and bound to the agreement signed between the player, parents of the player and the association. The agreement reserved the right of BAM to terminate the training programme for the non-performing players. While if the player chooses to stop the training programme by themselves, the player needs to compensate the association a sum of Malaysia Ringgit Thirty Thousand (RM30,000). This shows that the terms and conditions of the agreement does not protect the interests of the players.
The terms and conditions for junior badminton player to join BAM does not guarantee the education pathway of the player as well as the career progression of the player, as if the player does not meet the expectation of the management, their training programme will be terminated, and at the same time they need stop their school from the international school they have enrolled into since the beginning of the training.
This issue has put the player’s parents in trouble as the player was in public school studying national syllabus, then joined BAM for training programme and study in international school, after the termination of the programme the parents have to find new school for their child to continue their study. In another words it delays the education progress of the player and the player have no choice but to face it.
Therefore, for those who planned to join the BAM to continue their sports career especially teenagers, we hope that the player and parents can consider and plan more before making the decision to join the association. This is to ensure that the parents and or players can have their plan B if they are not selected to continue the training programme.
To conclude, the main reason of this write-up is to warn all the parents who have the strong interest to nurture their child and hope that they will become successful upon joining BAM to pursue their dream in playing badminton in international events. Whilst not only the players will not achieve their dream, they will need to sacrifice a lot during the process of pursuing badminton training to the international level. Please also be reminded that your childhood badminton dream will turn into a nightmare and all your hard work will be a huge waste once your training has been terminated without knowing the root cause. Together, we hope that the related parties should pay more attention or to take action and to rescue the BAM young and talented players from their badminton nightmare. They are not just to work hard for themselves but is for the people and nation.
Once again, both parents and children must consider twice before pursue their badminton dream with BAM. To those who have been terminated by the association from the training programme, we still hope that there is another way for you to achieve your dream, do not give up and there us always light at the end of a tunnel.