Among the comments is an response from the secretary general of SNOC. I read it with lots of incredibility. Of course, we don't have much of a track record in the past year or so. There aren't that many regional and international events in amateur go, at most a few every year, and these are mostly individual events. Therefore, most of the participants would not have the required track record. Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem, since go is not really an established sport here and possibly around the region.

Anyway, the rejection is quite a big bummer when I thought go is at its best here. It is only in the recent years that we have got a lot of very passionate young players, and a number of these young amateurs are getting really strong. I stress the word young, because a good proportion of the players will gradually drop out as they peruse higher studies and enter the workforce, since go alone cannot be our rice bowl.

Harleqin summed up the sentiment that at least part of the population has very well. This applies not just to sports, but education and jobs as well. A number of locals get squeezed out by foreigners, no thanks to the policies. The present government seems to be pretty much in a world of its own, and not serving the interests of the masses very well.