MSN has no power to drop any sport from SUKMA - DG

In a statement today, he said that the party responsible for setting SUKMA's policies and rules was the SUKMA Supreme Committee, which comprised several other sports stakeholders such as the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM), Ministry of Education (KPM) and the National Sports Institute (ISN).

"MSN was given the mandate by the SUKMA Supreme Committee at a meeting dated Oct 28, 2021, to take over the responsibility of hosting SUKMA 2022 after Johor returned their right to host due to COVID-19," he said.

According to Ahmad Shapawi, the SUKMA Supreme Committee meeting on March 21 this year had agreed that all 16 core sports and 15 optional sports on offer at the Johor SUKMA would continue to be contested.

He said that taekwondo, which was among the preferred sports categories, was not chosen by original hosts Johor from the very beginning, and that the matter had also been agreed upon by the majority of the states involved.

Yesterday, Taekwondo Malaysia (TM) claimed that their application to MSN for the taekwondo event to be included in SUKMA Kuala Lumpur this year was rejected.

Its president, Azizul Annuar Adenan said the rejection of the application was on the grounds that the decision had been confirmed and could not be changed, besides the fact that SUKMA was scheduled to begin soon on Sept 16.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Shapawi said MSN was, however, ready to help TM and taekwondo exponents in terms of training programmes.

"The main objective of organising SUKMA is to encourage the participation of as many talented young athletes as possible who can then represent the country at international events.

"Nevertheless, SUKMA is not the only tournament, in fact, we are ready to help TM conduct a national youth tournament to offer a wider competition," he said.