Money for nothing! (The Sunday Mail)

THE National Sports Council (NSC) should stop throwing money around if they are to keep Malaysian athletes competitive and ambitious. The ringgit for results carrot, under the present NSC monetary incentive scheme, can be a double-edged dagger as it has the tendency to kill initiative. It can lead to "short selling" by the athletes who, after getting a substantial reward, quit trying or giving their best. While it is fine to reward successful sportsmen and sportswomen, with the incentive scheme as a motivating factor, NSC should look more towards helping them when they retire. The present system, where large amounts are paid to athletes for winning medals, is no security to their future. There have been many cases of athletes running out of money as they are unable to manage their funds. NSC should study the South Korean system where bringing honours for the country earns an athlete merit points. The total points accumulated at the end of the athlete's career will determine the monthly pension he or she will receive for life on retirement. Inevitably, the argument against this will be that money diminishes in value as time goes on. When we have to take factors like inflation into account. But it is still better for an athlete to have an assured income for life rather than money to spend for the moment and nothing to fall back on in later years. Another plus for the pension scheme is that athletes will be committed to striving for success for as long as they can in order to maximise their merit points. At present, Malaysian athletes have been known to call it a day well before their peak after receiving a big payoff from the NSC. This is counter productive to the NSC, who would have spent much time, effort and money on developing these athletes. National bowling coach Sid Allen is all for the idea of a pension scheme for sportsmen and sportswomen who achieve excellence. "It's about time the NSC incentive scheme is looked into again to see how best it can be restructured. "I'm not against rewarding athletes, but to flood them with huge sums of money can be counter productive, "For starters, athletes will be looking at short term success where they tend to quit early after getting the cash. "Secondly, it is hard to motivate athletes who have tasted success because they have already earned enough. "Without a doubt, it is much wiser to set up funds for athletes to fall back on when they quit or for them to start a new life when they retire from sports," said Allen. Of course, immediate or tangible rewards can still be given, but the quantum should be much smaller. However, given the manner in which they are generally pampered, the athletes themselves will be the first to oppose the retirement scheme as most of them would prefer to lay their hands on hard cash first. It is no wonder that Malaysia have such an unusually high turnover of athletes and this, in turn, has led to the country performing inconsistently at international level. That South Korea are one of the world's top nations in sports is partly due to their pension scheme. For the 13th Asian Games, South Korea are only paying athletes who win gold medals token sums. There is nothing for those who win silver or bronze. But the athletes are still very committed and motivated as their main objective is getting the merit points. While some get just a few hundred dollars and a pat on the back, the athletes from the richer countries get a passport to a millionaire lifestyle. In contrast, Singapore are paying S$250,000 (RM585,000) for a gold, S$125,000 (RM293,000) for silver and S$62,500 (RM146,000) for a bronze in the Games. Hong Kong have dangled a HK$500,000 (RM244,000) carrot for a gold while Taiwan offer US$85,000. Hosts Thailand are giving one million baht (RM105,000) for a gold, 300,000 baht (RM31,550) for a silver and 200,000 baht (RM21,000) for a bronze. China, who on Thursday, surpassed the century mark in gold medals, are paying just 4,000 yuan (US$480) for a gold while Kuwait have promised their gold medallists a car each. On the other hand, athletes from India came to the Games quibbling that their US$3 (RM11.50) daily allowance was hardly sufficient. It's all relative of course, but the idea surely is to keep the athletes hungry and driven to perform. (END)