Subagyo elected as badminton body chief

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)