No spectators allow in the organising of sports events and competitions

Our state government through our Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) is now al­lowing sports tour­na­ments and com­pet­i­tive matches to be or­gan­ised with the condition that there are no spec­ta­tors involved.

I have mentioned during yesteday's press conference and this requirement would in­clude the Malaysia League or MLeague foot­ball matches that are kick­ing off this month. Mass ac­tiv­i­ties that in­volve large par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple at one time such as fun run, fun ride, marathon and triathlon are still not al­lowed.

Most of the stan­dard oper­at­ing pro­ce­dures (SOP) for the sports and recre­ational sec­tor pre­sented by the fed­eral govern­ment would be ap­pli­ca­ble in Sarawak – with a few ex­cep­tions, par­tic­u­larly in terms of the state's Ministry of Youth and Sports #MYSS be­ing the re­fer­ral body for Sarawak.

In other words, the sports and recre­ational ac­tiv­i­ties are al­lowed in the state be they in­di­vid­ual or team events for train­ing, matches and com­pet­i­tive pur­poses (in­door ad out­doors), held in com­pli­ance with the SOP and must not havet any at­ten­dance of spec­ta­tors.

Such tour­na­ment/com­pe­ti­tion is sub­ject to ap­proval by MYSS and must be no­ti­fied to SDMC in which the ap­proval to op­er­ate and use such facil­ties is lim­ited to sup­port let­ter from MYSS or SDMC. Such SOP posted by Sarawak Pub­lic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit or UKAS, amongst other things, states that the com­pet­ing teams and in­di­vid­u­als must ob­tain ap­proval from po­lice if they had to travel in­ter-district or in­ter-state.

The SOP also men­tions that play­ers, of­fi­cials and coaches com­ing from any Move­ment Con­trol Or­der (MCO) or Con­di­tional MCO-im­posed area must take the RTK-Anti­gen test three days be­fore join­ing the match or com­pe­ti­tion held in Sarawak. They must be tested neg­a­tive for Covid-19 be­fore be­ing al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in the match or com­pe­ti­tion.

Other di­rec­tives in­clude the re­quire­ment to check in us­ing the MySe­jahtera app and the scan­ning of body tem­per­a­ture, pro­vi­sion of hand sani­tis­ers at the venue, sani­ti­sa­tion of venue and ban­ning the use of saunas and jacuzzis. The lo­cal coun­cils are also per­mit­ted to con­duct checks and is­sue fines or take ac­tion ac­cod­ing to the rel­e­vant laws. Those who wants to know more on the SOP for the sports and recre­ation sec­tor in Sarawak could be ac­cessed via MYSS and SDMC web­sites.