02 Jan Amended rating system awaits approval

THE rating system for national associations has been amended with new scores and is now awaiting approval from Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. The amended rating system was submitted to Ismail, who had earlier called for improvements, last week. Ismail had expressed dissatisfaction with the earlier rating system as he felt it was flawed as certain associations which had not been delivering obtained high marks while those who have, received low scores. The rating system has many associations worried as how they perform will determine the amount of government funding they will receive in future. “We have submitted the report with some changes. Instead of grouping the scores, we have now given individual scores akin to a report card for the associations,” said Olympic Council of Malaysia deputy president Datuk Dr M. Jegathesan. The National Sports Council, the National Sports Institute and OCM were tasked with preparing the rating system. Earlier, the committee looked at three areas – governance, programmes and achievements – and the associations were asked to answer 124 questions. The first 57 were on governance, 34 on programmes and 33 on achievements and 47 national associations were tasked with answering the questions. Marks were given based on a total score and this irked some associations who, despite having better track records, scored lower as they did not “modify” their answers. Of the 47 associations, only three received five star ratings while 11 received four stars. Of the three associations which got five stars, the SRA of Malaysia was the highest with 93.92 per cent for governance, 89.47 per cent for programmes and 100 per cent for achievements for a 93.52 total. The Sepak Takraw Association of Malaysia, which withdrew from the 2007 Korat Sea Games over a dispute pertaining to the type of balls used,received 92.50 for governance, 93.24 for programmes and 87.90 for achievements for a 92.14 total while lawn bowls was awarded 90.10 for governance, 92.11 for programmes and 100 per cent for achievements for a 91.81 total. What surprised many was bowling’s failure to obtain a five-star rating,especially as the Malaysian Tenpin Bowling Congress (MTBC) not only has good governance and development programmes, it has a large pool of bowlers who consistently win honors on the international stage. Jegathesan said the rating system is now fairer as individual scores were awarded. “We will leave it to the Sports Minister to decide which aspect will be used since funding is involved.” Hopefully, there are no problems this time as the rating system was supposed to have been in place in 2008