Tan Aik Mong
KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Aik Mong has quit as the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) Talent Management Group (TMG) director after just 18 days in the job.
The former international said on Tuesday that the job, which he had carried out voluntarily, had become untenable following the BAM’s decision to revert all his changes to their original structure.
“I was called by BAM president Tengku Tan Sri Mahaleel Tengku Ariff to assist him in implementing changes and plans to revive Malaysia’s badminton. As all these changes and plans have now been reverted to the original structure, my involvement is no longer necessary,” said Aik Mong on Tuesday.
The 63-year-old started his job earnestly on Sept 7. The whole of BAM was behind him. And he was given full mandate to hire and fire.
But there were rumblings on the ground over the changes and former computer analyst Aik Mong’s approach did not go down well with some of the coaches. And his decision to break the national team into three groups – Teams A, B and C – also caused uneasiness and tension among the coaches and players.
He had also promoted and demoted some of the coaches and the appointments of Razif Sidek, Tan Kim Her and Koay Kar Lin as his assistants were also questioned. His plans for the national ranking tournament, which required the doubles players to have a singles ranking and vice versa, was also not well received.
Singles coach Rashid Sidek was the first to react. He quit on Thursday, saying the coaches were treated like second-class citizens and he did not enjoy the working environment any more.
On Monday, Tengku Mahaleel, in an effort to defuse the situation, had a six-hour meeting with all the national coaches and decided to do away with Aik Mong’s plan of forming the three teams. He also reinstated all the coaches in their original positions and formed only one national team.
Aik Mong, however, refused to delve further into his reason for quitting.
When pressed for more comments, Aik Mong said: “Tengku Mahaleel knows about my quit decision. That is all that I can say for now.”
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