MALAYSIAN hockey needs to be rebranded and the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) needs a cleanup after the national team’s latest debacle in Oman led to their failure to qualify for this year’s Paris Olympics.
This failure extends the hockey team’s absence from the biggest stage in the sports world to over 20 years.
All the talks and promises made in the past by MHC are now futile. It is time to say enough to all the talks and start doing something to bring the sport back to its full potential.
Enough with the disappointments.
A few years ago, during the qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics, the top management was ready to take the fall if the national team failed to make it to Japan.
The team did not make it to Tokyo, and it was business as usual for MHC. Then, Paris was the target, and A. Arul Selvaraj, also known as Arul, was brought in to complete the mission.
Now in Oman for the Olympic qualifiers, Arul was careful to set the target as he wanted to finish in the top three, but finished at the bottom of the group after losing to China and Great Britain, and drawing with Pakistan.
So, what is MHC’s excuse now?
Are they going to go with the usual script, which puts the blame on the coach and the players? Or will they take the blame and make some drastic changes to their management?
However, knowing Malaysian sports, Arul will be made the scapegoat for this latest disappointment.
In fact, that will be the case because one of the main key performance indicators (KPI) for Arul was to help the national team qualify for Paris. So, based on this, Arul will be the obvious target.
Or, will MHC just decide to boot out some players from the national team since it was them who took the blame for the Asian Games failure last year in Hangzhou.
But the truth is, the players did their best against China and Pakistan, as they were controlling the game and had many chances to score goals – but the ball just did not go in.
Against Great Britain, nobody expected them to win, as Paul Revington’s side was far superior to the Speedy Tigers. They are ranked fourth in the FIH world rankings, while Malaysia is ranked 13th.
When it comes to Arul, he was brought in specifically for the Paris Olympics qualification and he failed big time. He should take responsibility and step down, not wait for MHC to make a decision.
He is indeed a good coach, but things do not seem to be working for him at the moment.
But for MHC management, it is not only the Paris Olympics debacle that has tainted their record.
Here is a list of failures that can be added to the book of the current management of MHC:
– Finishing 11th at the 2016 Junior World Cup while the target was eighth.
– Failed to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
– The women’s indoor team failure at the 2017 KL SEA Games (the target was to be in the final but finished third in the group stage).
– Targeted top eight at the 2018 World Cup but was knocked out in the group stage.
– Targeted bronze at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games but finished fifth.
– Failure to win gold at the 2018 Asian Games as they only managed to win silver, losing to Japan.
– The women’s team failed to make the 2018 Asian Games semifinals.
– The women’s team’s failure to reach the final qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics.
– Losing to Canada 3-2 in the final of the 2019 FIH World Series in KL.
– The men’s team failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, losing to Great Britain in a two-legged match in London.
– Failure at the Asian Games last year after finishing sixth despite targeting the gold medal.
– Failure at the Junior World Cup in KL last year. Finishing 12th place after targeting the quarter-finals
– The women’s team’s failure at the Paris Olympics qualifiers in Spain. No target was set but the team were the punching bags after conceding 18 goals in three matches.
– The national team’s failure to qualify for Paris 2024.
– Now Malaysia is ranked 14th in the world.
With the long list of failures, it does not look like it will get any better from here.
It is high time for the current MHC management to make way for others who can bring changes, thus it is evident that it is time for a rebranding and cleaning process in the association. – January 21, 2024
T. Vignesh is an associate editor at Scoop