He said the shake-up was necessary following the erratic performance of the national squad at the last nine tournaments, starting with the Sudirman Cup in Finland in September.

“An announcement will be made by coaching and training (C&T) committee chairman Kenny Goh in due course, soon after he chairs a C&T meeting including a performance review of 2021 next week,” he said at a press conference today.

Norza had earlier welcomed the prime minister’s wife Muhaini Zainal Abidin, who is also the new patron of BAM, to Academy Badminton Malaysia in Bukit Kiara.

On the pressure from certain quarters urging him to resign following the recent disappointing performances, Norza vowed to continue leading BAM, as long as he had the trust of his committee members.

“I will remain here as long as my council wants me. We actually have progressed, it’s just that people can’t wait for the players to improve, but I believe we will improve,” said the BAM president, who was reelected for a second term (2021-2025) in April.

Norza, who is also president of the Olympic Council of Malaysia, said the main focus of BAM next year was to bring in new talent to take part in competitions at the highest-level.

He said, among the juniors with potential were three men’s singles players, Ng Tze Yong, Aidil Sholeh and Leong Jun Hao; men’s pair Wan Arif Wan Junaidi-Haikal Nazri, as well as five women’s singles shuttlers who were promoted to the senior squad in October, including Joanne Ng and Siti Nurshuhaini Azman.

In the meantime, he said BAM would send an elite squad to take on Malaysia’s challenge at the 2022 Thomas and Uber Cups in Bangkok, as well as the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

A back-up team would be given the opportunity to represent the country at the SEA Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.