LETTERS: Being an international or professional athlete is a challenging and prestigious job.
With increased risk of injury, and rigorous training and competition, it is a path few choose to pursue, except for enthusiasts like shuttler Datuk Lee Chong Wei, a three-time Olympic singles silver medallist, and Datuk Nicol David, an eight-time world women's squash champion.
Living one's life after high-performance sports has always been an experience laced with big challenges. We have come across distressing stories of our international athletes struggling after their retirement to find a job to make ends meet.
A handful of them have made it, but overall, a bigger percentage live from hand to mouth. One paralympics-bound woman athlete sold lottery tickets and tissue papers in Jalan Bukit Bintang. She turned down attempts by the National Athletes Welfare Foundation (Yakeb) to help her.
However, in the case of former six-time squash national champion Kenneth Low, he is suspected of suffering from a stroke-induced impairment, reduced coordination and motor skills, limited cognitive abilities and a short-term memory lapse.
All this costs money — can Yakeb foot the medical bill? The body depends on the government and government-linked companies for sponsors.
At his peak, Kenneth, 44, ranked fourth in Asia and 38th in the world. Today, due to his health issues, he is fated to do a cleaner's job with a minimum wage of RM1,500 to keep him going.
This is painful for a sports enthusiast like me to digest.
There are about 3,000 former athletes who are members of Yakeb. Perhaps Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh needs to come up with policies and procedures for athletes' assistance programmes, inclusive of a pension scheme.
A think tank can explore corporate partnerships with amateur and professional sports organisations.
It is timely for the ministry and Yakeb to review the welfare model in terms of health insurance, welfare assistance and pension schemes. India has a pension scheme for medal winners at the World Championship, Olympics or Asian Games. In the United States, the National Football League has a pension plan for players who have played professionally for three or more years.
Another critical point to take note of is that many of our former athletes can be employed as trainers, coaches and advisers in their field, or as commentators and broadcasters. There are numerous roles they could fill at the district and state level with MSN, or some can be partners of pharmaceutical companies and sports foundations to provide jobs and healthcare needs.
One good example is Malaysian squash star Mohd Nafiizwan Adnan, who has launched a start-up to help struggling athletes.
The ministry and sports bodies must brainstorm to come up with a strategic welfare model for the betterment of our athletes.
C. SATHASIVAM SITHERAVELLU
Seremban, Negri Sembilan
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
