While the Malaysian Hockey Confederation gave its affiliates until December 31 to merge, it can now be revealed that as many as four states have yet to comply.
The mergers between the men and women bodies at state levels was a requirement following the dissolution of the Malaysian Hockey Federation and the Malaysian Women Hockey Association in 2011.
States were given the whole of 2012 to undertake the task of merging but it is now learnt that Selangor, Perak, Terengganu and Negri Sembilan have yet to merge, thus putting at risk the legality of the MHC.
It was the International Hockey Federation that wanted hockey in its member countries to be run by a single body. And MHC was formed while MHF and MWHA continued to run independently.
FIH called the bluff and Malaysia were at one stage risking losing its membership with the FIH.
Now that these four states have yet to merge, it is indeed baffling that MHC has done nothing to overcome the situation and risk facing the wrath of FIH.
For starters MHC ought to bar these states from attending any of its meetings, and the same applies to its officials that sit on the various sub committees.
Next will be to bar them from participating in all MHC tournaments as they are not properly constituted thereby putting a big risk on MHC itself.
And should all this fail to resolve the issue, the sensible thing to do will be to cancel their affiliation, get a local leader within the state to form a protem body that will cater for the need of both sexes and move on with life.
A bit drastic one might say but remember that UMNO was declared illegal due to two members voting. Same principle here.
