Sports event promoter Melvin Chia does not blame the Sports Ministry for implementing the recent budget cuts but believes it could have been avoided with better decision-making from the start.
Melvin, who is also the Malaysia Snooker and Billiards Federation (MSBF) president, said too much money was spent on hiring foreign expertise during the early days of the Podium Programme.
The Podium Programme, founded in 2015, folded at the end of last year. A number of foreign specialists, most notably from Australia, were hired to steer the programme. Many of them have since left.
"You can't blame the Sports Minister (Datuk Seri Ahmad Faizal Azumu) for the budget cuts because he really didn't have a choice," said Melvin yesterday.
"When he came in (last year), the government was already running low on money, which is understandable considering the current circumstances with Covid-19.
"So he had to do what was necessary to keep sports afloat. It's the same for businesses.
"But you also have to ask why this is happening. I believe it (substantial budget cuts) wouldn't have been necessary if everything was sorted properly from the start.
"They took the wrong step from the beginning by spending a huge sum of money just to hire these foreign specialists and consultants who do not really understand our culture.
"I believe that if you want to excel, you must focus on securing the athletes welfare first rather than spending money on these consultants.
"How do you expect an athlete to focus on training and perform well if they are always worried about how they are going to make ends meet this month.
"You can hire Tiger Woods to coach here, and he would still struggle to produce good players if they are all worried about making a living."
With three major multi-sport competitions on the calendar this year (Vietnam Sea Games, Birmingham Commonwealth Games and Hangzhou Asian Games), the National Sports Council (NSC) have decided to retain athletes with medal potential.
NSC recently disclosed that 248 elite able-bodied athletes have been retained under the full-time national programme this year, down from 432 last year. For elite para-athletes, the number has been reduced to 45 athletes from 114 last year.
For the national backup programme, 178 athletes have been retained compared to 260 last year, while 22 para-athletes have also been called up.
Athletes who have been dropped can still train under their respective national coaches but will no longer receive training allowances, meals and accommodation or sports science support.
Melvin added that he supports the idea to bring back the Rakan Sukan corporate sponsorship programme.
"The Minister has no choice but to look at other ways to make up for the lower allocations," said Melvin.
"A number of parties including the NSC have supported the idea to bring back the Rakan Sukan programme, which I believe should have been done long ago."
Melvin disclosed that his national snooker players, who are not under the NSC programme, have had no choice but to take up jobs to make ends meet, which had sacrificed their training time.