Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) in a statement said Norza, who is also OCM president, had proposed the idea to OCA director-general Husain Al-Musallam during his working visit here on May 1 last year.
The statement said Husain was highly impressed with the state-of-the-art facilities within Akademi Badminton Malaysia (ABM), that not only houses the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) but also serves as the primary training hub for Malaysia’s national badminton team.
“As the former BAM president and honorary president of Badminton Asia, I am honoured to serve as OCA vice-president for Southeast Asia and contribute to the development of badminton in this new capacity.
“I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the newly elected OCA president, Raja Randhir Singh, for his visionary leadership.
“His dedication to the Olympic movement and his commitment to fostering sports development across Asia have been a true source of inspiration.
“With his guidance, we are confident that the Asian High-Performance Badminton Centre will play a pivotal role in the success of the OCA development programme,” Norza said.
This initiative represents a collaboration between the OCA, the National Olympic Committee (NOC) Malaysia and BAM.
This partnership was solidified with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) during the 44th OCA general assembly at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, India, yesterday.
The MoU was signed by Randhir, Norza and acting BAM president V Subramaniam.
This marks a significant milestone for the future of badminton in Asia and reflects the commitment of all parties involved to advance the sport at both the regional and global levels.
The main objective of establishing this centre is to contribute to the development of badminton across Asia by providing world-class training facilities in Malaysia, particularly for developing NOCs in the region.
The centre aims to nurture talent by offering high performance training to players, as well as development opportunities for coaches and umpires, through structured OCA development programmes.