Sports Bureau accused of neglecting disabled athletes

Siu Yu Hong

The chief executive officer of Macau Special Olympics has claimed that the city’s Sports Bureau (ID) is neglecting to support disabled athletes, allocating the bulk of their resources to investing in what he described as Macau’s “sporting elites.”

Siu Yu Hong, who is also a veteran social worker in the territory, made the accusation on Saturday on the sidelines of the CESL Asia and Friends Sport Fun Day, held at the Macau Federation of Trade Unions Workers Stadium.

“The Sports Bureau’s policy is to support the elite sports, but these [sports] are not suitable for the disabled people,” Siu told the Times. “They [ID] only focus on the sporting elites, but they don’t care about the underprivileged [sporting competitors]. They think that this is not their duty; that disabled sport is not their duty.”

He said that the ability to enjoy sport should be a right extended to all and that government departments ought to do their part to facilitate the uptake of the physical activities among those who are intellectually disabled.

“Playing sport is a human right for people with intellectual disabilities, not just [abled] people, or teenagers, or some athletes that come from China,” he said. “It is [also] for Macau citizens and that includes Macau people with disabilities. […] I think this is very important.”

In a statement provided yesterday to the Times, the ID maintained that to those Special Olympic athletes “who have achieved specific results in designated high-level competitions, […] the Sports Bureau would provide extra resources […] for full participation in professional training and competition.”

The statement said that the ID would provide resources “for different types of sports for disabled people” provided that the athletes in question “possess potential for sustainable development in Macau.”

Despite his accusation, Siu remains optimistic that the government’s sport promotion policies will be extended in the future to those with intellectual and physical handicaps.

“I think in the future, our government will reconsider our sports policy,” he said. “We need to make a policy that can support the people with intellectual disabilities to play sport [as well].”

The Sport Fun Day was intended to raise awareness of people with intellectual disabilities and to raise money to support them. According to CESL Asia, the main organizer behind the event, the government played an important role this year in helping to procure the use of the Stadium for the event. Organizers did not specify whether the ID had been involved with this effort.

In previous years, the event has been held at smaller sporting facilities. This year, assistance from the government has helped CESL Asia to scale the event to over 300 participants, organizers told the Times on Saturday.