KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) has approved applications from seven national sports associations (NSAs) for permanent training venues through the matching of the 1Sport 1Facility initiative.
Its Minister, Hannah Yeoh said among the sports associations who applied for venues for performance and talent development purposes are the Malaysian Obstacle Race Sports Association (MORSA), which is located at Kompleks Rakan Muda Bukit Kiara and the Malaysia Korfball Association, which is based at the Shah Alam National Sports Complex (Panasonic).
“We have tried matching and, as a result of that and discussions between the sports associations and the owners of sports facilities, seven NSAs have got training facilities at a reasonable price.
“I intend to develop basic infrastructure such as this to help develop sports in Malaysia. If the national team do not have a training ground, how are we going to help them win medals,“ she told a press conference after launching the 1Sports 1Facility initiative at the National Sports Institute (NSI) in Bukit Jalil here today.
The other NSAs whose applications for permanent training venues have been approved are for teqball (Malaysia Teqball Association) at the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Sports Academy Serdang; softball and baseball 5 (Softball Association of Malaysia) at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) softball pitch; diving and finswimming (Malaysia Finswimming Association) at the UPM sports academy; drone soccer (Malaysia Sports Aviation Federation) at MRANTI Park, Bukit Jalil; and ice hockey (Malaysia Ice Hockey Federation) at the IOI Icespace Ice Rink, IOI City Mall, Putrajaya.
She said that table tennis, which requires a large space to accommodate the many tables, and wrestling are among the other sports still looking for training venues.
Hannah added that under the 1Sports 1 Facility initiative, the ministry is working on providing incentives to private sector companies that assist the NSAs to get training centres.
“The KBS is in talks with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to find the best method that is beneficial for these private sector companies,“ she said. –Bernama
