Malaysian squash players could be looking at more local tournaments to ensure they don’t lose out on points as tight border controls and Covid-19 fears continue to disrupt the world sporting calendar.
Newly appointed Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) deputy president Azlan Iskandar also revealed he would moot a bubble travel tour.
“The (Malaysian) players can’t travel but the (Professional Squash Association) tour has opened up,” said Azlan.
“I have a formula for this. I’m already speaking to PSA to see if we can get some local tournaments going … just local tournaments to help our players collect points.
“Our next committee meeting is coming up (in two weeks) and I’m going to push this.”
Azlan stressed Malaysia needs local events and SRAM has to convince PSA to allow this.
“This is the beauty about knowing people in PSA as they are the peers I grew up with. I’m also trying to moot a bubble travel tour where all the players with professional ranking can be in that tour.”
He, however, pointed out that the 14-day mandatory quarantine will work against the visiting players as they would have no access to training and workouts.
“We have enough players, enough for a local circuit. The National Sports Council will be keen to look into this as we won’t drop in the professional ranking too much.
“It’s not anything that I’ve not thought about. I’m surprised the last committee didn’t think about this but this is me coming back in and saying I want to do this for the players. The players aren’t making money at the moment, they are losing points, they might even be out of the top 100 and the stakeholders will ask why they have dropped and it will be a vicious cycle.”
The former international said this on the weekly talk show The RSS with HD over the weekend.
Gerard Monteiro, who was SRAM deputy president, defeated incumbent president Nik Razeen A. Daud for the top post while another former national, Sharon Wee, was voted in as the vice-president.
Asked if he would have been more comfortable if Nik Razeen was still the president, Azlan said: “To be honest, as deputy president, I will have my say regardless who the president is. The constitution says I’m there to support the president which I will, whoever the president is, that’s not an issue.
“I think check and balance is important as well.
“It’s great that Gerard was part of squash development in the early 70s, 80s … he was a national player then. But a lot has changed (since). With him being with SRAM as deputy president for the last couple of years, he must have realised he could step up as president.
“When people challenge for the position, I think that’s great as people want to give back to the sport.”
The RSS with HD is hosted by actor Rashid Salleh and Twentytwo13 editor Haresh Deol.
Featuring personalities like former Formula 1 driver Alex Yoong, Olympic Council of Malaysia president Tan Sri Norza Zakaria and Olympians Maninderjit Singh and Che Chew Chan, the talk show is aired every Sunday at 4pm on YouTube (The RSS).
Amnig is the official brand attire for the show.
