KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 ― The Malaysian hockey team have qualified for next year’s World Cup despite not being on National Sports Institute’s (NSI) Podium Programme.

Maybe the management did not understand the hockey ranking system which works over a four year period.

Consideration should have been given to hockey based on its long past of high world ranking more than than its recent frailty.

Also, Malaysia are among the top six Asian teams — India, South Korea, Pakistan, Japan and China are the others — ranked among the top 15 in the world.

The Podium Programme should be for those who have the potential to rise and not limited to those with good results.

The Tigers were not built overnight. They started their programme under Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) in October 2015.

The Podium Programme, launched last year with the aim of winning Malaysia’s first Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2020, saw 97 athletes and 36 coaches from 21 sports included initially with a budget of RM75 million for the year.

The 21 sports selected were archery, para archery, badminton, para badminton, cycling, para cycling, karate, lawn bowls, para athletics, para swimming, diving, rhythmic gymnastics, sailing, para sailing, sepaktakraw, shooting, silat, squash, bowling, weightlifting and para powerlifting.

Besides the 2020 Olympic gold medal target, the programme also targets a top-10 medal finish at next year’s Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.

This year the Podium Programme saw an increase to 117 athletes. However, hockey still did not make the list.

Podium Programme director Tim Newenham said athletes would be on a six-month interim performance review to ensure they remain on target and to enable selection in exceptional cases.

Cyclist Shah Firdaus Sahrom, high jumper Nauraj Singh Randhawa, women’s singles shuttler Goh Jin Wei, squash players S. Sivasangari and Ng Eain Yow, swimmer Welson Sim Wee Sheng and weightlifter Muhammad Azroy Hazalwafie are among the new faces in the expanded programme.

Now having qualified for the World Cup, Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has said hockey will be reconsidered.

The question begging to be answered is whether adequate service was given by NSI to the successful World Cup qualification bid.

Although MHC are not complaining, it is learnt they had to pay for accommodation and meals for some NSI staff because it exceeded their budget.

MHC, too, should ask if they could have done better.

Among the questions: What happened to the majority of  players from the fourth-placed team in the Junior World Cup 
in 2013?

Was there a programme to enable them to move on to the senior squad?

Another area MHC should seriously look into is to allow more players to play in the European leagues to build them up physically and mentally.

Two years ago we have had seven playing in the Italian and German leagues — Faiz Helmi, Marhan Jalil and S. Selvaraju of Universiti Kuala Lumpur and Rashid Bahrom and Kevin Lim of Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club.

Three others — S. Kumar, Razie Rahim and Faizal Saari — played in India.

One of the reasons for Malaysia’s qualification for the 1998 World Cup was the stint in Germany some players experienced prior.

Among the players who benefited from the lead taken by NSC in 1997, prior to the World Cup qualifiers, were R. Shanker, Chairil Anwar Abdul Aziz, Nor Azlan Bakar, S. Kuhan and Kerpal Singh.

Prior to that, some players, including S. Selvarajoo, the late Chua Boon Huat, Sallehin Ghani, Kuhan and S. Bubalan, plied their trade in foreign leagues, but through their own efforts.

The sooner hockey is included in the Podium Programme, the better a smooth and proper training programme.