KUCHING: Parents and young shuttlers should consider carefully and plan ahead before making the decision to join the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), said Dr Kelvin Yii.

According to the Bandar Kuching MP, there have been cases recently when junior and senior players received termination letters from BAM to discontinue their training programme without relevant reasons.

“When this happens, not only do the players not achieve their dream, they have sacrificed a lot during the process of pursuing badminton training to international level.

“Their badminton dream will turn into a nightmare and all their hard work will be a huge waste once their training has been terminated without knowing the root cause,” he said in a statement.

Yii, who is also DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) national chief, pointed out that junior players in BAM are aged between 12 and 19 and they have been selected to join the association through talent identification (TID) across all states in Malaysia.

“Once they are selected, they have to let go of their studies in ordinary schools and enrol into BAM’s training programme and their education will continue in an international school provided by the association.

“The selected players will be briefed by the association and they need to sign an agreement and be bound to the agreement signed between the player, parents of the player and the association. The agreement reserved the right of BAM to terminate the training programme for non-performing players.

“If the player chooses to stop the training programme by themselves, the player needs to compensate the association a sum of RM30,000. This shows that the terms and conditions of the agreement does not protect the interests of the players,” the MP said.

“If the player does not meet the expectation of the management, his or her training programme will be terminated, and at the same time they need to stop attending classes at the international school they have enrolled into since the beginning of the training.”

He advised those who plan to join BAM to continue their sports career to consider and plan more before making the decision.

“This is to ensure that the parents and or players will have a ‘Plan B’ if they are not selected to continue the training programme,” he said.

Yii expressed the hope that the relevant parties will pay more attention or take action to assist those young and talented players who were terminated by the association.

”They are not working hard for themselves but have been doing so for the people and nation.

“We hope there is another way for them to achieve their dream and urge them not to give up for there is always light at the end of a tunnel,” he added.