BAM opens arms for independent and club players – Badminton news
The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) opened arms to embrace club and independent players, after a detailed council meeting yesterday.
BAM president Datuk Seri Nadzmi Salleh, after chairing the executive council meeting, briefed that the Association has endorsed the proposal of having independent players in national squad.
The proposal was moved by the High Performance Team member Datuk James Selvaraj in his four-year- programme and many BAM officials supported the idea.
The council decided to invite the independent and sponsored shuttlers in central training camp for the Thomas Cup finals but the icing on the cake was announcement of special squad for 2016 Olympics and Thomas Cup.
The Badminton Association of Malaysia will leave no stone unturned to seize the best in the Thomas Cup finals in China and BAM has taken an unusual step of injecting the best players of the country in the training camp.
BAM president Seri Nadzmi said, “With this in mind, we have requested Hafiz and Zulfadli to join BAM’s training from March 5 to prepare for the Axiata Cup. After the Axiata Cup, they will continue to train at BAM until the Thomas Cup Finals.”
The Axiata Cup is going to be staged from March 23 and it will be a tough trial for the Malaysian shuttlers as the Thomas Cup finals squad is expected to be announced right after this event in April. The squad will be formed on the basis of coaches’ assessments
and shuttlers’ performances.
The president Nadzmi doubled the joy and announced the four-year-programme of nurturing the young talent for Malaysia’s badminton future by forming a special squad which initially includes junior World Champion Zulfadli Zulkifli, Misbun Ramdan Misbun, Iskandar
Zulkarnain Zainuddin, Loh Wei Sheng and world junior boys’ champions Ow Yao Han-Chooi Kah Ming and Teo Ee Yi-Nelson Heg Wei Keat.
Nadzmi said, “The council decided to form the squad today because we believe that there should be continuity in BAM. More players from the national team or the clubs will be included in this squad if they show potential.”
The Badminton Association of Malaysia is sending official letters to the players but BAM has another challenging task of solving the sponsorship issues amicably as the independent badminton players have signed contracts and they need a go-ahead call either
from their sponsors or clubs to represent the country.
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