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Malaysia

Oct 10: IT was a sad day for hockey in particular, and Malaysian sport in general, when the highest authority in the Malaysian Hockey Federation, who by a royal command to the National Sports Council on Wednesday, had Paul Lissek reinstated as the national seniors coach against a backdrop of quit threats from several players.

Whether he realises the consequences of that command or not, that decision, in one fell swoop, had sent out too many alarming signals to the sports fraternity.

The most frightening one being that, in this country, it’s acceptable for players to hold a nation and a national body to ransom.

The hockey supremo, it would seem any which way you look at it, had by bowing to player power, signalled to the rest of the hockey fraternity that it’s more important to play for the coach than the country.

For why else would anyone who had been issued quit threats by players, led by skipper M. Kuhan, succumb to the pressure, if he like the rest of us, strongly feels that one should play for the country and not the coach.

Anywhere else in the world, these players would have been sacked. The decision by the England FA in the Rio Ferdinand case, is a case in point. Ferdinand missed a drugs test, the FA dropped him for the Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey, and his mates protested. But the FA stuck to its guns, the players backed down, and the full England squad, minus the Manchester United defender, are on their way to Istanbul.

In last year’s World Cup, Republic of Ireland coach Mick McCarthy was confronted by a player power problem as well. But only this time it was a one-man battle manned and led by another United player, Roy Keane. Keane, who was the mainstay of the side, said he would refuse to play if there weren’t better facilities for the team. McCarthy sent him back on the next flight.

And here we give in to players, and that too mediocre ones who would have been just good enough to shine the boots of their predecessors, if they were playing in that era when hockey was at its best.

The other alarming signal that must surely reverberate through the corridors of free expression, is a royal command that had influenced a Government agency — the NSC — to reverse its decision of redesignating Lissek as a development coach, and overturned a majority decision of the MHF management committee and the coaching committee.

NSC, as his paymasters, had removed Lissek as national coach and redesignated the German as a talent scout and development coach.

Following that, in a joint meeting between the MHF management committee and coaching committee last week, 12 out of 15 members endorsed the NSC decision and went on to decide on a local coach for the job. But Yahya Atan, the man they named, turned it down.

But before the management committee could put Plan B into action, the hockey supremo summoned his management committee to his palace, and decided to seek Lissek’s reinstatement despite strong objections from his officials.

This dictatorial method of management would only go to confirm general belief that royalty in sports leadership is one of the main contributing factors to Malaysian sport’s downfall, when in reality it’s not entirely true.

But one thing is entirely true, Malaysian sport doesn’t need leaders who have little or no respect for decisions made by common but qualified men.

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