President to decide on foreign coach

THE Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) coaching committee have chosen to remain clear of the foreign coach issue, leaving it solely in the hands of their president.
The coaching committee held a meeting yesterday, and came out with a plan to select two local caches each for the national, Project 2013 and Under-16 teams.
“We leave the issue of the foreign coach in the hands of the president (Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah). It is his prerogative to name one, when he gets a confirmation.
“The coaching committee, on its part, will suggest six names from the pool of coaches that we have for the three national teams, and forward it to the council for endorse ment,” said MHF coaching committee chairman Dr Balbir Singh.
The pool of coaches consists of Wallace Tan, Collin Sta Maria, Stephen van Huizen, Sarjit Singh,Tai Beng Hai, K. Rajan, K. Dharmaraj and many more grassroots coaches.
However, many of the above coaches are either inactive, or have opted out like Sarjit did at the meeting yesterday.
Beng Hai was the national interim coach for the whole of last year, and his contract was further extended for another six months after the New Zealand World Cup Qualifier.
And what happens to the structure when the foreign coach is hired?
“The local coaches will still remain at their spots, while the foreign coach will be the overall head,” said Dr Balbir.
The only coach MHF have been in contact with is Roelant Oltmans from the Netherlands, but his asking price of Euro10,000 and Euro 6,000 for his assistant is too steep for MHF to accept.
Malaysia will be involved in the Azlan Shah Cup, Com monwealth Games and Asian Game this year. The Asian Games in China offers a direct entry to the 2012 London Olympics.