Subagyo elected as badminton body chief

JAKARTA (JP): Subagyo Hadi Siswoyo, the Army's deputy chief of staff, has been elected as the chairman of the Badminton Association of Indonesia for the 1997-2001 period.

Subagyo, who replaced Soerjadi, said yesterday at the closing of the association national congress that he would reform the association's athletes' development program to retain the country's supremacy in the sport.

Subagyo said there were three main problems that he would tackle in chairing the organization.

"Firstly, the association must improve its lobbying of other badminton countries (to benefit Indonesia)."

Subagyo said the association must also focus its attention on talent scouting in provincial branches.

"We shouldn't have active and potential branches side by side with inactive branches. The association must consider encouraging the inactive branches to be more dynamic," he said.

"We also have to find new ways to improve the national badminton center to boost our players' standard," he added.

Subagyo said the association would need more funds to solve the three problems.

"We also have to concentrate on increasing the Badminton Foundation fund. The fund's interest is not enough to finance the association's annual spending. We'll try to figure out how to raise more funds but we still don't know how," he said.

Aburizal Bakrie, a member of the association's patrons board, said Saturday that the foundation had assets of Rp 12 billion (US$3.3 million).

Subagyo said that as a military officer he would not be afraid to punish officials who tried to take advantage of his position for himself.

Subagyo was backed by 24 provincial branches at the congress. He is to appoint his officials with assistance from Karsono, the Jakarta branch chairman, and Suhendarto, the Irian Jaya branch vice chairman, in one month. (yan)