Our national athletes are very much deserving of respect and recognition for their contribution and hard work, but sadly that's rarely the case.
Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian, a Malaysian track and field athlete expressed his dissatisfaction regarding his allowance cut. The National Sports Council has recently reduced his allowance from RM2000 per month to only RM800. The 34-year-old athlete had previously won gold medals at the 2007 and 2017 SEA Games in the 110 -meter hurdles as well as a silver medal at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines, which those achievements alone should earn him way more.
"If it was cut down to RM1,500, it'd have still been acceptable, but if it has dropped to RM800... I might as well look for a better career option... it's better to work at McDonald's," he said in an interview.
"I hope MSN has the discretion to consider this allowance deduction because many athletes have managed to maintain their performance even without a gold medal," he added. "For me, MSN needs to be more transparent and have the discretion to evaluate the performance of athletes, it is not appropriate for achievements to be evaluated only based on medals, not annual performance or even rankings in Asia."
It is certainly unfair for our national athletes to be treated this way. There has to be a better solution.