Lee Bee Wah - the cock-up MP
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Speculation is as good as anyone's half-baked guess. LBW shd have discussed with Liu and Antony first. Not letting one know he is sacked thru a 3rd party and another that his fate hangs in the balance.
Sacking in such a fashion and u second it?
it is how it is managed that is the question.
you and i do not know the ins and outs of this, so there is no point for us having a go at this.
if this warrants a sacking, then the timing is wrong. if this doesn't warrant a sacking, then lbw erred.
but neither cancel out the fact that gn deserves and expects a coach with him during his match up.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Yeh, according to ST, they were preparing for the q-final match. Not playing yet though.
precisely lor....everythings oso according to ST.....all of us are not in the actual picture....
how can some ppl jus starting to pin point & criticize on Lee alone...(jus becos they dun like her? or dislike PAP?)
negated that the manager need to bare the responsible as well....(if according to ST, it shd hv 4 other coaches ard, y must 3 of them all attended to the woman player? whereby their game not even start yet) isnt it is arranging problem?
just put urself in Gao's position, dun tell u will nt emotional affected?
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Originally posted by redDUST:
it is how it is managed that is the question.
you and i do not know the ins and outs of this, so there is no point for us having a go at this.
if this warrants a sacking, then the timing is wrong. if this doesn't warrant a sacking, then lbw erred.
but neither cancel out the fact that gn deserves and expects a coach with him during his match up.
Nope, u said u support the decision. I can only agree with you on the timing.Gao Ning deserves his coach but to lose a first round against a mediocre player and then result in Lee's sacking. I cannot agree. Moreover, no one knows the exact reason for a coach's absence in the match and Lee Bee Wah shd have consulted Lee and Liu before sacking one of them them...not sacking thru a 3rd party.
Even if u boss, u wana sack someone, u would apply due process, wouldn't u? I cannot agree with LBW's decision.
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Originally posted by baby hunter:
precisely lor....everythings oso according to ST.....all of us are not in the actual picture....
how can some ppl jus starting to pin point & criticize on Lee alone...(jus becos they dun like her? or dislike PAP?)
negated that the manager need to bare the responsible as well....(if according to ST, it shd hv 4 other coaches ard, y must 3 of them all attended to the woman player? whereby their game not even start yet) isnt it is arranging problem?
just put urself in Gao's position, dun tell u will nt emotional affected?
yeh why must 3 of them attend to the Li and Feng? I dun understand that part too. Since u said dun speculate in ur first few lines, why do so in ur second last line? lolAnd Gao's emotional problem is none of my business here. This topic is about LBW, whether she did the right thing or not.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Nope, u said u support the decision. I can only agree with you on the timing.Gao Ning deserves his coach but to lose a first round against a mediocre player and then result in Lee's sacking. I cannot agree. Moreover, no one knows the exact reason for a coach's absence in the match and Lee Bee Wah shd have consulted Lee and Liu before sacking one of them them...not sacking thru a 3rd party.
Even if u boss, u wana sack someone, u would apply due process, wouldn't u? I cannot agree with LBW's decision.
how u kn he's being sack? according to ST?
how u kn AL only kn he was sack thru 3rd party? according to ST?
I oso kn "according to ST", he's nt sack, is contract end liao
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Originally posted by baby hunter:
how u kn he's being sack? according to ST?
how u kn AL only kn he was sack thru 3rd party? according to ST?
I oso kn "according to ST", he's nt sack, is contract end liao
Nowhere in ST does it say his contract has ended. It's a sacking my dear.And ST is as good as it gets for table tennis news here. If ST cannot be believed, why are u even here? :D
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Granted that a coach would have been helpful in battle analysis but mind you, this was the FIRST round. Opponent was mediocre at best and Gao Ning was supposed to be the "Republic's top player". If Gao's loss was attributed to the absence of a coach and resultantly in Lee's sacking; way too harsh.
I hope LBW doesn't handle constituents in such high-handedness lol. Clown of AMK.
Mediocre at best, opponents???!! At the Olympics??? who are you kidding?!And do get your facts right. Manager Lee was not sacked. His fate had already been decided before the games started.
This incident happened before thousands of audiences and CANNOT be hidden from view just because many of us were not there. How do you like to recieved a call, like me, from my malaysian friend who was there, laughing at us singaporeans that even the coach had given up on our #1 player by not daring to show his face during the match?!
Winning isnt everything. What matters is had we tried our best? But right before thousands of eyes, we didn't - a mockery of the use of our hard earned funds to promote the serious effort to get a medal. Losing is ok, but negligence is unforgivable. 5 coaches and they could not even spare one for analysis and support for a current match?
Ridiculous! Oughta crucify the guy responsible and hang him in public! But he whomever is responsible, should be grateful it was not me in charge, but MP Lee who stood up for the player, hid nothing, and showed her displeasure courageously on our citizen's behalf.
Let no one think even for a moment, for all the glory they can give, is indispensible in our equal society. We as a nation, work together as a team, had been this way since independence.
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Originally posted by xtreyier:
Mediocre at best, opponents???!! At the Olympics??? who are you kidding?!And do get your facts right. Manager Lee was not sacked. His fate had already been decided before the games started.
This incident happened before thousands of audiences and CANNOT be hidden from view just because many of us were not there. How do you like to recieved a call, like me, from my malaysian friend who was there, laughing at us singaporeans that even the coach had given up on our #1 player by not daring to show his face during the match?!
Winning isnt everything. What matters is had we tried our best? But right before thousands of eyes, we didn't - a mockery of the use of our hard earned funds to promote the serious effort to get a medal. Losing is ok, but negligence is unforgivable. 5 coaches and they could not even spare one for analysis and support for a current match?
Ridiculous! Oughta crucify the guy responsible and hang him in public! But he whomever is responsible, should be grateful it was not me in charge, but MP Lee who stood up for the player, hid nothing, and showed her displeasure courageously on our citizen's behalf.
Let no one think even for a moment, for all the glory they can give, is indispensible in our equal society. We as a nation, work together as a team, had been this way since independence.
Yeh mediocrity is commonplace in the Olympics amongst the world's finest talents on show.
Get your facts right, I implore you :D. Antony's fate was not decided before the games as explained by LBW. That was just some lame excuse concocted to appease the mass outrage at her decision. You didn't catch that?
I agree with you the need for accountability but for Antony and Lee to know of their plight from a 3rd party and no discussion with them initiated by LBW before that......u second that? Not even discussion with table tennis offcials. U agree with that?
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Originally posted by xtreyier:
...but MP Lee who stood up for the player, hid nothing, and showed her displeasure courageously on our citizen's behalf.
Showed her displeasure courageously on our citizens' behalf?So why is she facing a mass public backlash? lol
More like cowardice for not telling Liu and Lee face to face her displeasure and then dismissing it as "decided to terminate services before Olympics" without ANY explanantion why.
Go figure :D
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Showed her displeasure courageously on our citizens' behalf?So why is she facing a mass public backlash? lol
More like cowardice for not telling Liu and Lee face to face her displeasure and then dismissing it as "decided to terminate services before Olympics" without ANY explanantion why.
Go figure :D
What 'mass public backlash' are you alluding to? A few disgruntled folks here and there in the media?
In truth, those who have a brain had already figured out. Move on, celebrate the medals, but sports officials who are negligent, no matter how good they are, won't be tolerated. The message had been sent. Loud and clear.
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Originally posted by xtreyier:
What 'mass public backlash' are you alluding to? A few disgruntled folks here and there in the media?
In truth, those who have a brain had already figured out. Move on, celebrate the medals, but sports officials who are negligent, no matter how good they are, won't be tolerated. The message had been sent. Loud and clear.
Lol Some people just cannot gauge sentiments online and in the press huh....look at how u evaded my replies in some other threads. Sighz......but i forgive and forget.Message sent loud and clear but in distaste. Accountability of course but due process has not seen the light of day.
Let's hope she does not handle AMK constituents in this high handed but bitterly correct way.
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The general public is ruled by emotions, more than rational.
I guess LBW will never have a chance to clarify her stand.
There will never be any better time to sack the manager.
If she need to reform some system in her association, she have the right and decision to do so.
I believe that there must be some things that have prompted her to take such drastic and unpopular actions.
As I mentioned before, she is actually doing her job during her stay in peking instead of looking like a siao cha bor in front of TV.
Unlike her fellow poodles and especially prata man who have no reason to be there except to eat peking duck.
I guess she must have mingled around with the players to understand how they operate and any area that requires any changes.
So, I guess patience is required.
It is better than some mini-ster saying some jobs may be lost, but higher paying job will also be created at the same time.
How can high paid job be created in a company that is practising retrenchment ??
What a piece of crap !!!!
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Not having a coach is definitely unacceptable. For any player he/she would be disappointed. BUt for one I don't see why the team manager should foot such a big responsibility. After all, its not in his place to tell the coach what to do. But i suppose antony lee was sacked cos he was expendable unlike the rest and thus an easy scapegoat? either that or he must have screwed up somehwere else. but hey, this is the sort of drama we can normally only see in the EPL. interesting to see where this leads to. I suppose in singapore, we only look at the results, we become so despo to get a mdeal that we forgot how to do things the right way anymore.
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It seems LBW doesn't need any reasons or excuse to do anything. She can close down any organisation or sack anyone. I am impressed. She closed down a school owned by STTA just barely 2 days into her role as President of STTA and dismissed the whole team in the school overnight - without any explanations or compassion for the staff. No thoughts spared for the staff and other stakeholders, nor the amount of resources that went into setting up the school to provide academic opportunity for the elite athletes. The dismissal was executed in a similarly distasteful and unprofessional manner. Now one month into the job, she is sacking key staff in STTA. Shouldn't there be some accountability towards the public? Or is she empowered to do whatever she likes?
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
Nope, u said u support the decision. I can only agree with you on the timing.Gao Ning deserves his coach but to lose a first round against a mediocre player and then result in Lee's sacking. I cannot agree. Moreover, no one knows the exact reason for a coach's absence in the match and Lee Bee Wah shd have consulted Lee and Liu before sacking one of them them...not sacking thru a 3rd party.
Even if u boss, u wana sack someone, u would apply due process, wouldn't u? I cannot agree with LBW's decision.
是的，bro....if that anthony guy did lapse in his responsibility, i think he ought to face the music. whether it is a sack, or censure, i do not want to get into a discussion.
his role, amongst others, is to ensure that every player/coach/team member's needs are taken care of. if he did not do that, more so for a player, then the consequence is more serious.
whether GN plays the world #232 or #23 is immaterial. he must have the best support he needs, and be in the right frame of mind to compete. he did not get it.
when he is asked to reapply for the job, it is not sacking. my company, whenever they undergo (major) reorganization, routinely ask us to reapply for the job. the objective is to get the best person for the job. it happen twice in the last 4 years already. one only worries when he is not the best person for the job becos of the various shortcomings he has, or becos he skive a lot. otherwise, he shouldn't worry.
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Ms Lee Bee Wah: A new broom sweeps indiscriminately
Monday, 25 August 2008, 8:20 am |
TOC Op-Ed
Choo Zheng Xi / Editor in Chief
Mr Ng Ser Miang, Singapore’s only representative on the International Olympic Committee, highlighted the arrogance of Member of Parliament (Nee Soon South, Ang Mo Kio GRC) Lee Bee Wah’s decision to fire Singapore table tennis team manager Antony Lee succinctly: “I’m quite puzzled as to how a decision like that can be made by the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) president, who has been in office for just over a month.”
That Ms Lee, who took over as STTA president only last month, feels that she has personal ownership over the table tennis team is undoubted. Using the personal pronoun in her interview with the Straits Times, she said: “I have a new team and will have a new CEO and technical director”.
Ms Lee’s transposition of the authoritarian instincts of the People’s Action Party (PAP) into the sporting arena highlights the ugliest characteristics of the party. She has in one fell swoop turned the mood over Singapore’s first Olympic silver sour, putting personal pique over national interest, running roughshod over people far more qualified than herself to impose a unilateral decision that very obviously lacks the support of those with a deep stake in Singapore’s sporting success.
Ms Lee was right to ask for accountability in the fiasco that left Singapore’s top men’s player Gao Ning on courtside alone, without a coach, during his match with unfancied Croatian Tan Ruiwu. Gao lost the match 0-4. It is unfortunate that Ms Lee has chosen to overreact and create a larger fiasco by making a public example of Antony Lee without consulting table tennis officials.
Integrity, accountability
More damningly, this incident speaks poorly of her integrity. She did not have the courage to admit that the Gao Ning fiasco was the reason she fired Mr Lee. Asked by the Straits Times if this was the reason she fired Mr Lee, she said it was not and added that “she just wanted to ‘let the matter rest’.”
If we take Ms Lee for her word, she has to explain to the country why she fired the Singaporean manager of our only team to win an Olympic silver – and this after a 48-year drought. The only other conclusion to draw is that she is cravenly trying to damage control the fallout of her rash action.
Mr Ng’s criticisms of Ms Lee’s rash actions carry great weight. Unlike Ms Lee, Mr Ng has devoted much of his life to the development of Singaporean sport. He was a former national sailor, and is currently the patron of the Singapore Sailing Federation. As the vice-president of the Singapore National Olympic Council, he was a key player in securing Singapore’s bid to host the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.
Highhandedness
Having been the president of the STTA for only a month, Ms Lee can have minimal understanding of the team’s dynamic at best. More realistically, she is completely ignorant of the efforts put in by Mr Lee, and the rapport he has built with the team. To add insult to injury, she chose to fire Mr Lee without telling him to his face. Mr Lee had to find out about his dismissal from a ‘third party’, as he himself described it. “I’m surprised she did not tell me directly. That would be the courteous thing to do. I have to hear this from third parties. After doing so much for Singapore,” Mr Lee told the Straits Times, “I deserve a little respect.”
Ms Lee, however, said that “Antony is welcome to apply for the position when we ask for applications.” (Straits Times). It is ironic that in her “bold” public act, what has been foregrounded is her personal cowardice and highhandedness.
Perhaps Ms Lee did not want to follow the example of how her PAP colleague, Minister for Home Affairs Mr Wong Kan Seng, bungled the Mas Selamat fallout with a half baked apology.
It is sad that she did not perceive the real lesson behind the public’s low estimation of Mr Wong’s insincerity. Mr Wong chose to exonerate the head of the Internal Security Department (ISD) without subjecting him to a disciplinary inquiry. Ms Lee has fallen on the other extreme of the same fundamental problem. By not subjecting the team manager’s oversight to a disciplinary inquiry of sporting officials with a clearer understanding of the sporting arena, she has shown a similar disdain for due process.
The lesson for our political leaders is this: due process in ascertaining guilt or exoneration matters more than well-publicized fist thumping. In Ms Lee’s case, that fist thumping is all the more galling for her inexperience and arrogance.
http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/08/ms-lee-bee-wah-a-new-broom-sweeps-indiscriminately/
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Originally posted by Khoo 0401:
It seems LBW doesn’t need any reasons or excuse to do anything. She can close down any organisation or sack anyone. I am impressed. She closed down a school owned by STTA just barely 2 days into her role as President of STTA and dismissed the whole team in the school overnight – without any explanations or compassion for the staff. No thoughts spared for the staff and other stakeholders, nor the amount of resources that went into setting up the school to provide academic opportunity for the elite athletes. The dismissal was executed in a similarly distasteful and unprofessional manner. Now one month into the job, she is sacking key staff in STTA. Shouldn’t there be some accountability towards the public? Or is she empowered to do whatever she likes?
whether the decision she had made is right or wrong, I have no comment & need not to argue abt. from my view, the whole incident started from one chinese word "bu huay zhou ran"
but the other hand, if a decision maker ended still have to consult a, b, c, d etc.....b4 any move, what's a pt giving he or she the authorization?
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Originally posted by Khoo 0401:
It seems LBW doesn’t need any reasons or excuse to do anything. She can close down any organisation or sack anyone. I am impressed. She closed down a school owned by STTA just barely 2 days into her role as President of STTA and dismissed the whole team in the school overnight – without any explanations or compassion for the staff. No thoughts spared for the staff and other stakeholders, nor the amount of resources that went into setting up the school to provide academic opportunity for the elite athletes. The dismissal was executed in a similarly distasteful and unprofessional manner. Now one month into the job, she is sacking key staff in STTA. Shouldn’t there be some accountability towards the public? Or is she empowered to do whatever she likes?
whether the decision she had made is right or wrong, I have no comment & need not to argue abt. from my view, the whole incident started from one chinese word "bu huay zhou ran"
but the other hand, if a decision maker ended still have to consult a, b, c, d etc.....b4 any move, what's a pt giving he or she the authorization?
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anyway lbw and her new administration would be expected to retain the silver or even get the gold..if not she can head for the exit... so ironical for 48 years singapore did not get a medal and nobody sacked no coach...now they get one medal and they sack the manager....either they think they are really that good or they've got a better team, which in either case they would have to perform well in london.
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she know how to play ping pong or not in the first place?
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dun think see know wat is ping pong ball.
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Originally posted by baby hunter:
whether the decision she had made is right or wrong, I have no comment & need not to argue abt. from my view, the whole incident started from one chinese word "bu huay zhou ran"
but the other hand, if a decision maker ended still have to consult a, b, c, d etc.....b4 any move, what's a pt giving he or she the authorization?
Dude, you need to improve your hanyu pinyin.
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Originally posted by I-like-flings(m):
she know how to play ping pong or not in the first place?
CEO of Apple need not kn how to manufacture a 3G iPhone.not necessary for Bil gate to kn how to design a 'Window" program.
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Originally posted by yamizi:
Dude, you need to improve your hanyu pinyin.
uncle mi old man no study de...how can u laugh at mi.... 
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Originally posted by redDUST:
i beg to differ. 1 came only early this year, and another mid-last year.
in sporting terms, this is scantly `come a long way'.
Well, depends to whom you give the glory for the medal. Singapore worked for 48 years, STTA have been working for don't know how many years, then come this Silver medal. and the players, come here one year and get silver medal in olympics, they must be good, but even they don't take the whole credit for themselves.
Yes, some of the players are new in our team, but they have taken the decision to fulfil the dream even to the extent of migrating to the country who accept their dream. They have gone a long way in fulfilling their dream. Many players work their whole life but win nothing, guess they had wasted their time lah... this is not sporting spirit.
Tiger Woods started playing golf at 2 yrs old, Michael Phelps started swimming at 7...what they went through, lost time for social life, studies, vigourous training, overcoming injuries....if they don't make it, you won't know they exist. Now you know there is a Li Jia Wei, Feng Tian Wei, Wang Yue Gu, and Tan Hao Liang, at least in Singapore.
Somebody wrote in the papers today, "In olympic, big countries look for results, small countries value their participation; The real Olympic spirit values involvement more than winning medals; in life, how you live your life matters more than what you achieve." and being involved is more than just going there, join in the opening and closing ceremony .
The singapore table tennis team, the STTA have shown Singaporean that we have the facilities, we have the world standard training, world class coaches and everything you need to be a world class table tennis players, are singaporean inspired, motivated, enough to do your own part for the game, especially those true blue Singaporean, born in Singapore? If somebody can do it with just one year as Singaporean, what more can you do, having born and grow up in Singapore?
If these people can't, then they can argue against FT, call it fake medals, blah blah blah, until their face turned green, nobody will remember who they are, true blue singaporean with green face, hahaha.
In the mean time, the three paddlers will be remembered, together with Tan Hao Liang, as Singapore's olympic medalists, in the new history of Singapore, and Singaporean, born here or otherwise, will continue to rejoice with them.