The government-appointed Sports Committee held a closed-door plenary meeting yesterday at the Tap Seac Multisport Pavilion, after which Sports Bureau (ID) President Luís Gomes told the media that the bureau will enhance several of its financial support programmes next year, with one of them aiming to explicitly protect athletes – for both elite and team athletes – with different training needs through clearly defined standards and systems.
This year’s second plenary meeting was chaired by Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U.
Speaking to reporters during a post-meeting press briefing, Gomes, citing the changes in the international sports arena in the past decade, stressed that the bureau would make corresponding amendments to the government’s financial support measures for local athletes in the light of the direction of the development of different sports at regional and international levels, such as redefining the scale and level of some of the competitions, as well as institutionalising the competitions for the general public and the disabled.
At the press conference, Gomes repeatedly said that the bureau would adopt a “fine-tuned” and “refined” approach to enhancing its financial support schemes, adding that in addition to re-aligning recognised competitions, the bureau would also expand the scope and level of subsidies under the original scheme, in which the financial assistance for athletes at the top level will be increased by 17 percent.
“Taking into account the fact that athletes who have maintained a high level of performance over a long period of time, for example, if they have come in the top three places in the Asian Games for two consecutive years, they may receive additional subsidies on top of the original subsidies, so that the financial support measures for them will not be affected by the fluctuations in their performance from time to time,” Gomes said.
According to Gomes, the bureau also plans to extend the existing subsidy measure for athletes under the age of 14, and to introduce a new category of “aspiring elite athletes”, giving play to the strengths of athletes who aspire to commit themselves to professional training in the long run.
He emphasised the need to stay within the budget and to focus resources on athletes first, on the basis of a balanced budget in 2024: “Our original intention was to protect athletes and coaches with reasonable sports resources, and we have done this in a systematic way”.
MGP tickets selling like hot cakes
Meanwhile, the 71st Macau Grand Prix (MGP) will kick off next Thursday. When asked about ticket sales, Gomes said that over 90 percent of the tickets for the main races have been sold, among which the main increase in the ticket mix comes from travel packages, accounting for 76 percent.
Gomes also said he believed that the FIA FR World Cup, which is one of the highlights of this year’s event, will bring new momentum and highlights to the world of motorsports, quoting the Paris-based motor-sports federation as saying that in the past Formula Regional (FR) races have been regionally based, and that the upcoming Macau Grand Prix will be the first time that a group of the world’s top FR drivers will compete on the Guia Circuit, hoping that it will enable more members of the general public and fans around the globe to learn more about the latest developments in the world of motorsports.
Yesterday’s meeting also discussed the enhancement of public sports facilities and next year’s launch of the government’s five-year report about local residents’ physical fitness.
Members of the government-appointed Sports Committee, including Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Elsie Ao Ieong U (centre) and Sports Bureau (ID) President Luís Gomes (left), pose before yesterday’s closed-door plenary meeting at the Tap Seac Multisport Pavilion. – Photo: Yuki Lei
