Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s two-time World Junior girl’s singles champion, Goh Jin Wei revealed that she was denied a fair chance of competing for Malaysia at international tournaments by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM).
In a casual conversation with Malaysia’s former World No. 5 women’s singles squash player – Low Wee Wern, they were both discussing the aftermath of the downsizing of some high-profile athletes by Malaysia’s National Sports Council (NSC) as NSC had decided to cut 144 athletes from its training program due to lack of funding.
Goh went on to say that she had actually successfully registered for the 2022 Syed Modi India International that will take place in Lucknow, India, from Jan 18, 2022, to Jan 23, 2022, however, she was called back to BAM and both parties reached a mutual agreement to withdraw her registration from the Syed Modi India International.
“Right now, they are trying to block me from signing up for international tournaments,” said Goh.
“Actually, I have registered successfully for India Open which is happening this month. After that, they called me to go BAM for a meeting.”
“During the meeting with them, we have reached a mutual agreement that they want me to withdraw my name out of India Open first.”
“Because if I registered and played independently, it’s like against them, since they claimed they have spent so much on me, about RM1.4 million on me.”
“They said before, whether you are playing independently or under the national team, we all fight for Malaysia.”
“I don’t know why they …”
“I thought they can give me a blessing to play as an independent player during that meeting. But maybe I didn’t follow what they want me to do, they started blocking me from registering for tournaments.”
On Jan 3, 2022, BAM’s secretary-general – Kenny Goh told Malaysian media that Penang Badminton Association had approached BAM on behalf of Goh Jin Wei as the 21-year-old attempted to return to BAM.
After watching a YouTube video posted by Goh Jin Wei on the evening of Jan 3, BadmintonPlanet.com published an article saying Goh had denied rumors of returning to BAM, and BAM continued to apply its usual tactics to pressure Malaysian shuttlers to only comply with what they said.
BAM quickly issued a clarification on Jan 4, 2022, as its secretary-general Kenny Goh was being political correct again by saying BAM was not trying to bully Malaysian badminton players, in fact, BAM had invested about RM1.4 million in Goh Jin Wei, and BAM’s door is always open for discussion and they are ready to assist Goh Jin Wei in the best way they can.
Frankly, all Malaysian badminton fans and a lot of former Malaysian national players knew that the BAM management is full of incredibly incompetent people. These people at BAM management would start kicking players out of BAM if those players were deemed too old, or under-performed. The BAM management would then call for a press conference, telling the media that they were not satisfied with the performance of these Malaysian shuttlers.
However, BAM seemed never to question themselves why they failed to nurture an Olympic gold medalist or World Champion despite having world-class facilities and a pool of great badminton talents?
