KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Basketball Association (Maba) president Datuk Seri Lee Tian Hock has defended the national body's decision to demolish the Maba Stadium at Jalan Hang Jebat to make way for a new development.
Tian Hock said the Maba Stadium — built in 1995 with a capacity of 1,800 spectators — was no longer suitable to host tournaments of world standard today.
"Stadiums are actually liabilities, they are good to look at but they won't feed you," said Lee yesterday.
"If we have money, we can find a new stadium or book one to host tournaments. What we need most is a training court to allow our national players to train.
"We are incredibly grateful to our forefathers and former leaders for getting us such a beautiful piece of land and building this stadium.
"A lot of memories have happened in this stadium over the years but times have changed. Associations and businesses both need to move with the times.
"This stadium is no longer suitable (for our needs). If you want to host a FIBA-sanctioned tournament the stadium needs to have a capacity of at least 3,000 for World Youth-level tournaments and 4,000 for other world-level events.
"This stadium cannot accommodate (this capacity) so it is better if we looked for a stadium which can help us achieve our objectives."
The Maba Stadium and adjacent Wisma Maba will be demolished to make way for the new Maba Suitez @ KL City Centre development.
The Maba-Exsim joint-venture project, which has an estimated gross development value of RM800 million, is expected to take five to six years to complete.
Maba is set to to receive a RM170 million cash consideration from the deal from which they will reinvest RM100 million by purchasing units in the new buildings at a discounted rate from Exsim.
The units bought are expected to generate RM4 to RM6 million each year for Maba through transient rentals. Maba will then use the funds to run their annual programmes and cover administrative costs.
Maba also plan to assign two units to each of their 18 affiliates in the hopes of generating recurring income for them.