KUALA LUMPUR – Outspoken sports analyst Mohd Sadek Mustafa has taken a swipe at Malaysia’s high-performance sports infrastructure, claiming that the lack of sports science expertise and dedicated support staff is not new but a long-standing issue.
Sadek, a senior sports science lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), revealed that concerns over Malaysia’s inadequate high-performance support structure were already flagged in the post-mortem of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
“I was part of the independent panel for the post-mortem, and the shortage of expertise was highlighted then,” he said.
“The problem with Malaysian sports is that everything is done on a surface or touch-base level. There is no long-term sustainability or continuity.
“Of course, budget constraints are a factor, but how serious is sports development to our government? Just look at the funding allocated to the National Sports Institute (NSI). We’re talking about elite-level sports and not school games here.
“Tens of millions of ringgit is simply not enough to cater to every athlete in every sport.
“If the government is truly serious about developing sports in Malaysia, it should allocate at least RM1 billion in its yearly budget. Only then can we keep up with the rest of the world in terms of training, sports science expertise, advanced technology, and facilities,” he added.
For context, under Budget 2025, the Malaysian government allocated over RM230 million for sports development.
Sadek also called for greater transparency in government funding for sports, stressing that the public is largely unaware of how much is allocated and where or how it is spent.
His comments come after Malaysian cycling technical director John Beasley recently pointed out that elite athletes lack dedicated full-time support teams, which hampers their progress on the international stage.
Beasley has highlighted that sports science professionals such as strength and conditioning coaches, physiotherapists, and sports scientists are often shared across multiple sports rather than being assigned exclusively to high-performance athletes.
At the same time, Datuk V. Subramaniam, acting president of the Badminton Association of Malaysia and a board member of the NSI, agreed with Beasley’s concerns, admitting that Malaysia does not have enough resources to provide full-time support staff for every high-performance sport.
“The biggest issue is cost. Right now, we simply cannot afford to support every sport with dedicated personnel,” Subramaniam said.
To address this, he urged the government to engage government-linked companies (GLCs) to help fund high-performance sports, citing the long-standing collaboration between Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) as an example.
Sadek, however, believes that while corporate involvement is beneficial, the responsibility ultimately lies with the government to make sports development a national priority.
“Without proper investment, we will continue to lag behind. We need long-term planning, substantial funding, and a serious commitment to sports science if we want to see real progress,” he said. – February 18, 2025