When I wrote about the Champions Youth Cup being the most expensive football tournament ever to be held in Malaysia a year ago, there were a lot of unhappy people in the Sports Ministry.
A high-powered round-table discussion involving the movers and shakers of the Ministry wanted to take legal recourse because they believed I wrote it with malicious intent.
Came the launch at the Mandarin Oriental on March 16, 2007, Berita Harian's Ahmad Khawari Isa and the Sun's Citizen Nades were among the super critical journos in attendance.
A day earlier, the backpage of the Malay Mail carried this headline - Money well spent?
Last night, Bunyamin Umar (pic, left) and Baddrol Bakhtiar departed for London for a two-week stint at Chelsea.
I was told the trip was financed not by the promoters Gifted Group but by the National Sports Council. Again the government agency, already scraping the bottom of the barrel, is burdened with the responsibility. Please YB Minister of Bera, look into this.
Anyway this was the piece that drew the ire of many.
A MASSIVE RM17 million, that's the conservative estimation for the
Malaysian Government to stage the most expensive football tournament in
our history sometime in August.
It's called the Champions Youth Cup (CYC), an invitational tournament
which is said to serve as a leverage for the national youth teams to hone
their skills in places like Arsenal.
A deal between the Sports Ministry and a London-based sports promotion
company was inked recently to fly in the youth teams of Inter Milan,
Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona and Lyon, among others, to the five venues
identified - Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Alor Star and Kuantan - for
the tournament to be held in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2007
and Malaysia's 50th Merdeka celebrations.
A draft of the agreement which required the Sports Ministry to pay the
promoter as much as RM17 million over four instalments, was made
available to Mailsport.
A media briefing held by the company for a selected few was held last
night and representatives of the various media houses (Mailsport were not
invited) were told to adhere to an embargo ahead of the official launch
at a hotel near KLCC tomorrow.
The major shareholder of the company is based at Onslow Gardens,
London, while the minority shareholder's address can be traced to
Guernsey, Channel Islands, a place where Les Miserables writer Victor
Hugo once called home.
It is not known whether the proposed stint at Arsenal, which was
announced by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak last
month, is part of the agreement.
Sports Ministry officials, when contacted, declined to comment.
Sources, however, said it was better not to pre-empt the conference.
"There will be an announcement on the Arsenal issue on Friday," said a
source.
Tomorrow's launch is a highly anticipated one as the National Sports
Council (NSC) director-general Datuk Dr Ramlan Abdul Aziz, who had been
grilled over the Arsenal issue, is expected to disclose details
pertaining to the proposed stint in London.
Sports Minister, Datuk Azalina Othman Said, is expected to grace the
launch.
According to the agreement, the tournament will consist of 16 teams
made up of 10 G-14 teams, four teams from South America, a host team and
another guest team.
It is learnt that there will be no cash prizes only a trophy to be
presented to the winners.
The companies are said to be negotiating for a few illustrious names to
travel to Kuala Lumpur to conduct coaching clinics as supporting
programmes ahead of the tournament.
However, following Najib's announcement on the proposed stint, it
emerged no formal discussion had been held between the Ministry and
Arsenal.
This was confirmed through an e-mail response from the communications
department of Arsenal to Mailsport.
Upon further checks, Mailsport discovered the only discussion on the
subject was held at Arsenal's state-of-the-art training centre in
Hertfordshire, between a five-man recce team from Kuala Lumpur and the
centre manager, Sean O'Connor, just before the Cabinet Committee on
Sports Development's announcement on the proposed stint on Feb 8.
FA of Malaysia (FAM) general secretary Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Saad said
the arrangement was mooted because of the centre's proximity with the Tun
Abdul Razak Research Centre in Bricken-donbury, which will be converted
into a high-performance training centre.
Apart from Ibrahim, completing the five-man team were Dr Ramlan, NSC
board member Philip Chan and NSC officials, Mej Muhammad Abdul Rani and
David Chiam.
Dr Ramlan was quoted by New Straits Times on Feb 9 as saying the
English Premiership giant had agreed in principle to the project.
An independent website on the Olympic Games 2012, insidethegames. com,
claimed the idea was shrouded in mystery.
It can be accessed at www.insidethegames. com/php/free_newsletters.php,
while a newspaper, Hertfordshire Mercury, in their issue dated Feb 16,
claimed the 13-time English champions had no knowledge of the agreement.
"We have no knowledge of this training camp or these proposals. I can
categorically say that we have not been approached by the Malaysian
Government," an Arsenal spokesman told the paper.
The online report is available at www.hertsessexnews.co.uk/news/
mercury/hertfordshire_mercury/2007/02/16/gunners%20on%
20target%20to%20train%20malaysian%20team.lpf
A high-powered round-table discussion involving the movers and shakers of the Ministry wanted to take legal recourse because they believed I wrote it with malicious intent.
Came the launch at the Mandarin Oriental on March 16, 2007, Berita Harian's Ahmad Khawari Isa and the Sun's Citizen Nades were among the super critical journos in attendance.
A day earlier, the backpage of the Malay Mail carried this headline - Money well spent?
Last night, Bunyamin Umar (pic, left) and Baddrol Bakhtiar departed for London for a two-week stint at Chelsea.
I was told the trip was financed not by the promoters Gifted Group but by the National Sports Council. Again the government agency, already scraping the bottom of the barrel, is burdened with the responsibility. Please YB Minister of Bera, look into this.
Anyway this was the piece that drew the ire of many.
A MASSIVE RM17 million, that's the conservative estimation for the
Malaysian Government to stage the most expensive football tournament in
our history sometime in August.
It's called the Champions Youth Cup (CYC), an invitational tournament
which is said to serve as a leverage for the national youth teams to hone
their skills in places like Arsenal.
A deal between the Sports Ministry and a London-based sports promotion
company was inked recently to fly in the youth teams of Inter Milan,
Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona and Lyon, among others, to the five venues
identified - Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Alor Star and Kuantan - for
the tournament to be held in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2007
and Malaysia's 50th Merdeka celebrations.
A draft of the agreement which required the Sports Ministry to pay the
promoter as much as RM17 million over four instalments, was made
available to Mailsport.
A media briefing held by the company for a selected few was held last
night and representatives of the various media houses (Mailsport were not
invited) were told to adhere to an embargo ahead of the official launch
at a hotel near KLCC tomorrow.
The major shareholder of the company is based at Onslow Gardens,
London, while the minority shareholder's address can be traced to
Guernsey, Channel Islands, a place where Les Miserables writer Victor
Hugo once called home.
It is not known whether the proposed stint at Arsenal, which was
announced by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak last
month, is part of the agreement.
Sports Ministry officials, when contacted, declined to comment.
Sources, however, said it was better not to pre-empt the conference.
"There will be an announcement on the Arsenal issue on Friday," said a
source.
Tomorrow's launch is a highly anticipated one as the National Sports
Council (NSC) director-general Datuk Dr Ramlan Abdul Aziz, who had been
grilled over the Arsenal issue, is expected to disclose details
pertaining to the proposed stint in London.
Sports Minister, Datuk Azalina Othman Said, is expected to grace the
launch.
According to the agreement, the tournament will consist of 16 teams
made up of 10 G-14 teams, four teams from South America, a host team and
another guest team.
It is learnt that there will be no cash prizes only a trophy to be
presented to the winners.
The companies are said to be negotiating for a few illustrious names to
travel to Kuala Lumpur to conduct coaching clinics as supporting
programmes ahead of the tournament.
However, following Najib's announcement on the proposed stint, it
emerged no formal discussion had been held between the Ministry and
Arsenal.
This was confirmed through an e-mail response from the communications
department of Arsenal to Mailsport.
Upon further checks, Mailsport discovered the only discussion on the
subject was held at Arsenal's state-of-the-art training centre in
Hertfordshire, between a five-man recce team from Kuala Lumpur and the
centre manager, Sean O'Connor, just before the Cabinet Committee on
Sports Development's announcement on the proposed stint on Feb 8.
FA of Malaysia (FAM) general secretary Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Saad said
the arrangement was mooted because of the centre's proximity with the Tun
Abdul Razak Research Centre in Bricken-donbury, which will be converted
into a high-performance training centre.
Apart from Ibrahim, completing the five-man team were Dr Ramlan, NSC
board member Philip Chan and NSC officials, Mej Muhammad Abdul Rani and
David Chiam.
Dr Ramlan was quoted by New Straits Times on Feb 9 as saying the
English Premiership giant had agreed in principle to the project.
An independent website on the Olympic Games 2012, insidethegames. com,
claimed the idea was shrouded in mystery.
It can be accessed at www.insidethegames. com/php/free_newsletters.php,
while a newspaper, Hertfordshire Mercury, in their issue dated Feb 16,
claimed the 13-time English champions had no knowledge of the agreement.
"We have no knowledge of this training camp or these proposals. I can
categorically say that we have not been approached by the Malaysian
Government," an Arsenal spokesman told the paper.
The online report is available at www.hertsessexnews.co.uk/news/
mercury/hertfordshire_mercury/2007/02/16/gunners%20on%
20target%20to%20train%20malaysian%20team.lpf
2 comments:
HANTU !
Hello Bro apa Khabar, well the actual figure is RM 27 million and not 17m the question is how many people benefitted from it la bro. Media 247, Creative Ad, your good friend Adlin, former Malay Mail Sports Editor ... banyak lagi, so will Jonathan Price fly Azalina and Najib by private jet like last year to the venues.
What a waste of money, a tournament that only cost RM 6 million was approved at 27m, maybe ACA should investigate how the deal was made.
The culprits was be brought to Justice bro.
Once again tax payers money going into some pockets that seems to be involved in sports development.
Maybe this could be the last of CYC in Malaysia, and Imagine in two years JP walked out with RM 54 million no wonder NSC is bankrap.
Well the most embrassing thing is certain sports editors are also on take la. what a fucking embrassement. These are the people who are criticising others man! Shame on Them.
CYC was a scam la bro. Big time. Pls la...The Rakyat can do the math. The Rakyat was just keeping quiet. I mean, dont have to go into the scam that deep la. How many people aka soccer fans actually paid to watch the games? Can we have the figures pls? For each match mind you. CYC la. ABC la. We dont need these games. These are under-age tourney je. And how much can Akhmal Rizal or Safee Sali learn? Shukor Adan needs lessons from these kids? puhleeezzz!!!
The F-ing thing is that these scams are approved projects. By scumbags with vested interest. We got better things to do la. Need more money on GENUINE development works. More funds for fields upkeepings and the list goes on and on. Go fly into some private jets if you like but no need to fly in these kids, burn a few millions and we the Rakyat, gain nothing, zilch, zero zip!!!
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