Kuala Lumpur: A petition created on change.org calling for the resignation of the leaders at Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has reached 10,000+ signatures.
The petition titled “Fire Mohamad Norza Zakaria, Kenny Goh, Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos of BAM Malaysia” was started about two weeks ago when BAM slapped Lee Zii Jia and Goh Jin Wei with a 2-year ban after both players decided to leave the association and become independent players. BAM has been met with near-universal criticism from badminton players and fans all over the world for that decision.
According to the creator of the petition, despite being the first of its kind petition which has successfully reached 10,000+ signatures, it’s unlikely to sway Malaysian legislators on the issue. Nevertheless, the creator of the petition praised the 10k+ people who were brave enough to step up and make their voice heard.
There were hundreds of comments left by people who signed the petition, below are just a few comments we’ve selected randomly. You can view the entire comments section via this link.
“All BAM top posts should only be handled by ex-players from Malaysia, not by people/politicians who don’t even understand badminton. This is to stop them politicizing BAM and to stop BAM from continuing to go downhill.”
“peraturan badminton ciptaan manusia dan mereka yg bukan pun pemain. hentikan nak dapat kredit dari sakit penat orang lain. mereka jenis kaki perabis elaun dan buat keputusan ikut arahan semata”
“Justice for LZJ and Goh Jin Wei. BAM perosak masa depan atlit negara yg berpotensi besar untuk membawa pulang gelaran juara dunia dan olimpik pada masa akan datang. Player² berhak buat keputusan sendiri demi masa depan mereka.”
“Don’t play politics with sports. An opportunity to bring Malaysia to glory and about to be destroyed again by these brainless BAM top guys.”
“BAM with outdated sports admin n mindset. Tennis n Squash, etc hv moved into full geared Pro direction so that committed sports people can see it as a career.
Whenever someone plays in a Pro Circuit, wen they wins, they auto establish their national flag/identity.
Dat is auto patriotism.
Don’t say they spent lots of $ to nurture sports people from young.
Dats what the national budget is for.
Otherwise abolish the Sports Ministry.
And reallocate this budget to Senior Citizens welfares.
BTW, we shud start a petition on WBF for also living in cave times.
They r not speeding up the Pro Circuit to be in Squash / Tennis league.”
“Bam should be investigated and their existing system be overhauled to get rid of politics, power play and possibly corruption for the sake of the Malaysian athletes. Fish rots from the head, so remove the head first!”
“BAM should look into the “WHY” the players want to leave instead of banning them. Our coaches also leaving BAM and giving good results in other countries especially Japan. There must be something that pushing the players and coaches away.”
Meanwhile, another petition that was originally titled “Do Not Ban Lee Zii Jia & Goh Jin Wei” but was renamed to “Lee Zii Jia has participated on BATC“, has reached a total of 123k+ signatures.
