Kuala Lumpur: General manager of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), Kenny Goh has confirmed on Thursday that the chief coach of Malaysia’s junior badminton programme Zhou Kejian had resigned from BAM.
Zhou was a Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS) coach from 1992-2006 before he left to coach in Macau. The 64-year-old was re-hired in 2011 to strengthen BAM’s junior programme at the school. His return as boys’ singles badminton coach at BJSS has seen a sharp rise in the standard of youngsters such as Soo Teck Zhi who won the 2013 Asian Junior Championships title, and Cheam June Wei who won the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics badminton mixed doubles gold with Hong Kong’s Ng Tsz Yau.
Meanwhile, coaches of national team – Rashid Sidek, Tey Seu Bock, Jeremy Gan, Pang Cheh Chang, Rosman Razak, Wong Tat Meng and several coaches from the BJSS whose contracts ended on Dec 31 were granted three-month extension from BAM.
“We were informed via email after 7pm that our contracts have been extended for three more months,” said Rashid Sidek, who is no longer the chief coach under the new BAM contract.
“The extension of these temporary contracts would pave the way for Morten Frost’s arrival in March. Frost may select his own team of coaches after that,” added Rashid.
“We were informed about this via email without any prior notice. And I’ll have to take salary cut under the restructured contract.”
“I will continue to do my best to prepare our players for the Malaysian Open GPG that will be held from Jan 13-18. Hopefully the meeting with BAM management on Jan 5 would help clarify these uncertainties and confusions.”
