During the tabling of Bajet 2023, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz announced that the government will be allocating RM13 million for what is described as “esports development”. This is part of the total of RM332 million allocated for training programs and sports facilities. Justifying the budget allocation for sports-related expenditures, the minister mentioned the great performance of Malaysian athletes around the world.
Tengku Zafrul mentions specifically the winners of the men’s doubles event at the 2022 BWF World Championships, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik. But the Malaysian esports athletes have major achievements of their own this year. During inaugural the Commonwealth Esports Championships just two months ago, Malaysia’s esports athletes managed to score three gold medals.
In case you missed it, one of the three medals was claimed by Nor Haikal Noh, who represented the Malaysian Super League champions Johor Darul Ta’zim in the eFootball open event. He claimed the top spot by defeating his opponent 2-0.
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The other two medals were claimed by Malaysian Dota 2 teams. One is for the women’s event, with victory being claimed by Grills Gaming, the team which finished the event with a perfect record, suffering no losses from the group stage all the way to the grand finals. As for the open category for the Dota 2 event, it was Team Malaysia who claimed the gold medal, defeating the English team with a final score of 2:1.
With all that being said though, the RM13 million budget allocation for esports was only mentioned in passing. Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul did not provide a detailed breakdown of the way that money will be spent. It may be for building, maintenance or upgrading of facilities, or perhaps it will be for the ecosystem as a whole. That being said, those already have their own allocations of RM145 million and RM154 million, respectively.
(Source: RTM / YouTube)
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