The key to progress is selection guidelines.

Without doubt in my mind the major key for change is properly deliberated selection guidelines for any new leadership.

Lets go back to 2 examples I have just talked about to see what we can mine from past experiences.

PICA. There were 3 of us in the selection committee. Me, Zaki Mahumud and Chan. Of the 3, two were new. Zaki as the new PT for Perak had just warmed his seat in State Chess and I had just joined the committee. So the only experienced person on the committee was Chan. Ref: Here.

So any new leadership will also need to rely on information provided by "technical". And as we saw that is a journey fraught with many dangers. Sabotage and undermining.

In the above case we saw misinformation leaked to a parent. Later on the guidelines were aborted altogether even by the new committee members that joined the committee on my ticket. Selection is power. The ability to arbitrarily choose and to reject forms the cornerstone of why some want to be in committee.

Lets look at the Greg situation again now. He started off well. He anchored his NAG and he brought in the National Junior. That is the credit to him. And then he aided in bringing in selection but after which he did a quick about turn.

Now the post of Secretary in an MCF without guidelines is arguably the most powerful post there is. Relatively he may even be more powerful than our own Prime Minister. And yet as you can see even he can be turned.

Here I can only attempt to try and reason out what happened for this turn around. Follow my reasoning to see if it carries water. One possible reason is that the selection was only a tool used by him to bring his detractors to heel. For he was having a lot of problems at that time. His bargaining chip so to speak.

A possible clue is that even with written selection he managed to bring in 2 players outside the criteria. I think that was a message to some people. I think the message was that he is the go to guy to "fix" things.

The other possible reason is that the entrenched vested interests acting in concert are too powerful for even one with such absolute powers as the Secretary of MCF to withstand. Simply put, for they also provide the substantial part of the manpower.

Recent experience starting with the entry of Peter Long to determine national guidelines even though he is not even in MCF but has a vote because of KLCA as well as Melaka gives more credence to the first reason. But at the same time the second reason also cannot be discounted if we also use the experience from PICA as to why some join Associations.

Note: If my reasoning carries any water then it may only be a question of time before selection is reversed.

So any new leader needs to have the strength of character to handle all this. And more important he will also need a team of like minded people on the committee or we will be just rearranging the dust for many more years to come.

Some may argue that this is just chess. My argument is that the correct perspective is play chess with the people outside Malaysia. Team Malaysia vs Team Singapore for instance.

Why are we doing the work for our opponents in the International field? Why are we sabotaging our own people? That is my question and I hope that the new leadership, if any, can provide some answers and solutions.