UAE will not 'buy' medals

The UAE will never give citizenship to foreign "hired" hands in order to "buy" an Olympic medal, Ibrahim Abdul Malik insists.

The UAE will never give citizenship to foreign "hired" hands in order to "buy" an Olympic medal, Ibrahim Abdul Malik, the general secretary of the National Olympic Committee (NOC), has insisted. Bahrain won their very first Olympic gold medal last week when the Morocco-born Rashid Ramzi, who was given Bahraini citizenship in 2002, won the 1500m. But despite Ramzi's historic victory the UAE have no intention of following suit and "hiring athletes", even though they have not come close to a single medal in Beijing during the last fortnight. "We don't believe in hiring athletes just to get good results," said Malik, who is also general secretary of the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare. "We believe that when the flag of our country is raised at any competition, the one who is responsible for it should feel the meaning of this flag. The great moment is when we are feeling it - the tears, the emotions. They will never have that sense of belonging to this land. "We are not interested in just a medal. We want results that will make this nation proud. This is something you cannot buy. "When you hire someone, he will never have these feelings. He will have no feelings when he is listening to your national anthem. There are no emotions for him, absolutely no feelings. He is just doing a job he has been hired to do, he is just doing his job to make money." Ahmad al Kamali, the president of the Athletics Federation, agreed with Malik. "You should be able to create your own champions," he said. "You cannot give citizenship to someone just for the sake of a medal. You should work from the grassroots and create champions. You have to pick young talents, nurture them, train them, spend money on them and turn them into champions. "If you are just bringing good athletes from outside and giving them citizenship, you are not doing justice to the talents in your own country." The issue is a big concern for the International Olympic Committee, (IOC), and their president Jacques Rogge said: "What is bad are countries or organisations wanting to buy athletes just for the money." Malik understood what Rogge meant and said: "At the 2004 Athens Olympics I was speaking to an official from one of these countries who are hiring athletes. I asked him why he is not going to watch his athlete, who was competing at that moment. He said, 'no, he is not from my country'. I said, 'but he is carrying your flag'. He replied, 'it doesn't mean anything to him'. "So if you have this feeling, than why do you want to hire athletes? We are not going to do that. We don't want people to say 'OK, these people bought a medal, they did not work for it. They do not own it. They do not deserve to have this medal'. "If the medal is not coming from one of your own, there is no pride involved. We are working hard with our own nationals and trying to get results."

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