Public Speaking Final Speech: Politician Shouldn't Be Involved In Sport Organization

  Topic : Politic & Sport

Title : Politician Should Not Be Involved In Sport Organization

General Goal : To Persuade

Specific Goal : I want my audience to believe that politicians' involvement in sport is not practical and relevant anymore.
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Imagine that you're a hardcore Malaysian football team supporter. What would you do if you know there's a football match between Malaysia and England at the stadium in front of your house. Of course, there will be no answer except, go for it, sit on stadium seat and give full of support/motivation for our national team. For that match, England trash Malaysia by netting 10 – 0 because our players play like the primary school's level. How would you feel when you never see any improvement in our local football performances for almost 25 years? I bet you would point your finger to players and sport organization leadership.

Maybe some of you say, this issue doesn't bother you at all or you just disagree with this topic. Since our Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's decision to have ministers and politicians in government give up their leadership positions in sport organization lately, it became a big issue automatically. As a sport fan especially football and badminton since i was 6 years old, i haven't seen any improvement yet in our sport performances and discover that politicians' involvement was the main major reason. I'm also a die-hard football fan for Selangor, Liverpool FC and of course our 'Harimau Malaya' national team. So, i could differentiate local and overseas football scenario easily, and what i found out is, there's no politicians' involvement in overseas sport industries.

I have categorized 3 main reasons why the politician shouldn't be involved in sport organization, which are : i) politician's self- interest ; ii) lack of technical skill in sport and its business ; iii) politic in every aspect in management.

There will be politician’s self interest when you see politician who doesn’t know much about certain sport holds the leadership of its organization. You should know, in our country, government budget for national sport is almost a billion ringgit. Beside for sport infrastructure, performances development and player salaries, a quarter of received budget for a sport organization is for the management. High allowances for sport organization’s leaders which includes their salary for meeting attendances, facilities such as 5-star hotels and official cars are unreasonable values. Would you feel angry when you realize those mannequin sport leaders have been wasted government’s budget which is a originally from our own income tax payments?

As leader of sport organization, they should know the sport itself intensively, how to solve the inner performance problems from minor until major aspects. As we know, usually after bad performances showed by the athletes in high standard sport events, there will be held postmortem meetings to discuss the problems. Some of them couldn’t share their point of view in resolving the problems, they don’t have any idea at all just because the lack of technical skills in sport and its business. So that’s why, I said high-allowance for a meeting attendance is totally wasting money and time. I give an example of a politician who was the secretary of Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) before he made decision to resign lately. In the 70’s and early 80’s, Dato’ Seri Ibrahim Saad was a lecturer in our university, UKM before he joined a mainstream political party. So, what do you expect from a hybrid politician to be an expert in raising the credibility of FAM? Believe me, it would be different if the specialists in sport development or ex-sportsmen hold the leadership. For an example, Jose Mourinho, ex-chelsea manager who had a degree and made a thesis about methodology of football, is one of the most famous football specialists nowadays.

Ironically, politic in every aspect in management limits the improvement of sport itself. When the country facing the problems, being a minister would challenge the skills of even the most accomplished executive. It would consume all of the one’s time and energy to do justice to the position. Cronism and corruption are less likely to happen when the power is not concentrated. Members of the royalty heading sport organization except as patrons and symbolic heads cannot be fully effective for the successful of organization. Those under them are unduly deferential and would be consumed with royal protocol. I wanna ask you, how to complain effectively to Sultan or members of royalty by using royal protocol? Is it the situation gonna be like this, Ampun Tuanku – i think your decision's totally stupid.

Politicians are not suitable enough for holding the sport organization leadership if we want a step forward in sport performances and to improve the quality of sport in our country because of the reason that I've told you before this.

After hearing my speech, do you still believe that politician is the best person to manage in every aspect of any organization leadership? I believe if you've no relationship with them, the answer will be no. We should follow the developed countries on how they organize their sport industries which has been commercialized into a billion dollars sector. The first thing that we should think is the selected persons who lead the organization must have the technical skills in that sport, management skill and totally focusing on that job to strengthen the credibility of the organization. As we know, every rotten apple started to rot from the inside, so we should change the management first if we want to see Malaysian squad to win every Thomas Cup or the 'Harimau Malaya' football team to lift the World Cup for the first time ever. Forget about the difference of political stances, we fight as we think what is the best for all of us.

Thank You.