Monday, October 20, 2008

RECAP : Time To Rejunavate Malaysian Soccer

This Letter was first published in the New Straits Times somewhere in July 2001.

Over the last decade, Malaysian Soccer has seen a slump in performance owing to many factors which are some natural and some self inflicted, the second factor being more prominent.

Our own M-Leaque, modelled after the Japanese J-League was quite a success when it started especially when foreign players turned out for almost all the state teams. The presence of Singapore and Brunei only made the leaque more merrier. Singapore, especially, draws huge crowd whenever they play in malaysian states and who can forget the lion's very own 'Kallang Roar'. Droves of Singaporean fans also travels to malaysian states to watch and support their team especially when they are playing arch rivals Selangor and Johor.
The stadiums were always full and even small cities are congested during the M-League match days.
The crackdown of bribery, the ouster of Singapore from the M-League and the departure of foreign players in the mid 90s has made M-League uninteresting prompting fans to stay away from the stadiums. Even live telecast of matches has seen lower viewership. Back in 80s and early 90s, enthusiastic fans would be always waiting till match hours to check whether there are any live telecast, which are always kept a secret until the last minute.

Stadiums are now empty and only the top teams are capable of drawing big crowds but not as huge as before when the foreign players turned out for all teams.
The FAM seems to made a big blunder by stopping the teams from enggaging foreign players.

Malaysia seems to be the only country where their national football association felt that having foreign players in the league was bad. The decision was taken at the same time as UEFA decided to allow players from eroupean union (EU) free to play in any clubs in europe without restictions. Only players from outside of Europe are considered as foreign players.
The real problem faced by the malaysian soccer is the management of the game and lack of consistency and direction from the authority of the game, the FAM.

The FAM is seen to be always changing their plans and also rules and this unpredictable decision making process has led to lack of direction and inability of place long term programs to improve the state of soccer.
The presence of politicians in the FAM and the state football associations has made the situation worse. The politicians, some who hardly have kicked a ball always interferes in the planning and coaching of the teams and always jostles for posts and publicity. It is no secret that these politicians are ever present in almost all state FAs to meet their political agenda. There is no enthusiasm or honesty in them to help improve the standard of soccer in the country.

The lack of knowledge, passion for soccer combined with their political agenda results in poor management of the state associations and also state academies.
Hardly any of the state teams have enough funds to sustain on the own and depends on FAM grants every other year to compete in the M-League. Often the grants given by the FAM are mismanaged and usually not much is spent on youth development resulting in poor quality players turning out for state teams year after year.

These factors coupled with the lack of will by the FAM to taken stern action over mismanagement of state FAs has resulted in poor and sometime shameful performance of the national team.

It is now time to act. The FAM has to do something to correct the situation. The state FAs needs to be scrutinised and probably a professional advisor needs to be attached to state FAs so that their activities, management of academies and also funds are always scrutinised and not be subject of abuse by the state FAs.

The M-League needs to be rejunavated. The inclusion of foreign players is very much welcomed. The youngsters will definitely gain much by playing against the much bigger and skillful foreigners.
The FAM should also think hard on the sponsorship of the M-League. There are many companies out there who are willing to sponsor the state teams and also the league in whole but the the current sponsor's overwhelming presence is seen to be a drawback. Nobody would want to sponsor any teams if three quater of the stadiums are filled with billbords advertising only one particular sponsor.
The same applies when all team jerseys carries the same sponsor's logo. The FAM should take cue from the English Premier League where the main sponsor of the Premier Leaque is not forced upon to be advertised by the premier one clubs and only a certain portion of stadiums are filled with billboards from the main sponsor.

The FAM should also consider inviting Singapore back to M-League. Since now Singapore has their own S-League, FAM should consider proposing the merger of these two small leagues. This could lead to a bigger league and of course more matches all year round. Other proffesional leagues have players competing up to 60 - 80 matches a year. In both M-League and S-League players compete in only about 60 matches a year.

If this materialises, then sponsors from both Singapore and Malaysia will definitely come forward to sponsor and benefit from advertising to a bigger and broader audience. More matches also means more advertising opportunity. Teams should be asked to find their own sponsors while funds from the main sponsor should be strictly chanelled towards youth development. Teams who can't find sponsors should not be allowed to play in the league.

FAM should never neglect youth development. With the help of Olympic Council Of Malaysia(OCM), discussion should be held with the education ministry to encourage the game at schools level. Current education system does not allow students to prosper in sports and parents doubts that sports, especially soccer can promise a bright future for their children. This misconception must change.

FAM should take cue from other sports association like Bowling and Squash on their youth development programs. Perhaps a visit or discussion with these successful sports associations will do a lot of good for FAM.

Doing away from politics once in a while. Unfortunately, there are politics in Malaysian Soccer scene too.

RECAP : It has been a good 7 years since I wrote this article but nothing much has changed. FAM allowed foreign players in 2003 and again, in a shocking 'ala Flip Flop Abdullah' move, banned foreign player for next season.

Grass roots development leaves much to be desired. Parents and schools are not much of a help in this 'education first' society. Squash has produced Datuk Nicol Davids while our keglers has maintained their standing as one of the best in the region, if not the world. These are results of long term grass root development.

Bribery made a comeback recently and Malaysia, instead of becoming a soccer power, has now become famous all over the world for high technology match fixing.

FAM did not change much, just that Tengku Abdullah had since resigned from FAM. A well intentioned man, Tengku Abdullah simply couldn't bring about a change to the patronage-politics influenced state FAs.

When Khairy Jamaluddin joined FAM as it's Vice-President (won uncontested), many thought that Malaysian football will receive a boost and perhaps some Oxford inspired strategies to improve the pathetic state of soccer in the country. It was unfortunate that even with Khairy, FAM decided to go backwards with the ban on foreign players.

State FAs are still managed or rather mismanaged by politicians and they are still bent on putting brakes on club sides, which has shown good potential in recent times.

Singapore has seen reasonable success with their league and has done well in international tournaments.

I would still believe that merger of M-League and S-League would bring about benefits to the standard of soccer in both countries and may well be financially viable.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr Balan,

When we we talk about football in Malaysia, we get a little bit emotional maybe due to frustration. Is it such a big issue? Is it as big as the financial crisis in US or our own economy? Its not a big issue at all. When its not a big issue, why do we need politician to be involved in it in the first place?A simple management by qualified people can do that easily at federal and state level.Let all teams handle their own affair them self whether regarding quality or finance.You fail you loose.Let have some freedom here.

When M-league started we imported many foreign players but great quality one.Most of the players had international credentials. Zoran Nicolic,Jung Jung, Fandi Ahmad and Karel Stromsik who played for Czech World cup team. HE even played for Czech again after quitting Selangor and that shows the quality of players we had at that time.

So, we still can bring in the foreigner but please bring in the good one and only those who has international credential. 1 expensive player is better than 3 cheap unknown players. Make this a regulation.

For football development in Malaysia, we need good scouting people. Import scout agent... Importing good coach but without having good raw material is asking the coach to do magic. Open the market for scouting agency in Malaysia let them come in and develop the players. They will spend money on talent they pick. The team then will buy the players from the agent when the players ripe and at the right price. Just look at Turkey, they have good scouting agent.I know this guy an ex-galatasaray junior player who now lives in Malaysia.He said FAM doesnt know how to pick good players. He now plays sunday football and even said he can identify few players that he play with that can get into our National team anytime. Phewww...I hate typing..

Anonymous said...

Mr Balan,

Just to add a little more. People might ask how come during Mokhtar Dahari's time our natinal team did well even without foreign players and scouting agent.

Because, at that time,to get into Malaysia team you have to go through several process of playing at:-

1. school level
2. school district level
3. state school level
4. club district level
5. club state level
6.then you got picked to play for the state team.
7.then only you can be considered for the National team.

during the 70's and early 80's district championship is every where.You don't see that anymore.

and Mohktar Dahari played for 3 teams simultaneously at the sime time.
1. Club Level- PKNS
2. State Level- Selangor
3. The Malaysian National team.

Obviously if you had to to go through all the above process, the cream will come on top.

Phewww, i hate typing..

OTAI (Otak Tenang Akal Inovatif) said...

aberamly.wordpress.com

ramlyotai.blogspot.com

marilah jumpa dalam blok abe li ni....

October 20, 2008 2:09 AM
mari belajar ilmu orang cina agar awak tak kena jual...

Anonymous said...

Rejunavate ? i think its time to bury it and put it out of its misery !

HeroTamil said...

Hahahahahaha...!!
Malaysian football??

Every paper is pouring praises to our Pestabola merdeka team for thumping Nepal..Afghanistan..Sierra Leone.

ERkkkk....!! What??
Nepal?? Afghan?? Sierra Leon??..
Do they have football fields??

Sorry to say lah... our FAM official are still dreaming of the good old days lah!!

Just throw away all the present official and the present players!!
Semua very the manja!!

and Let start a fresh!!

We miss the time of Super Mokh, Spidey Arumugam, Towkey Soh Chin Aun. We miss reading about their commitment to game.

Bukan macam sekarang.
Training luar negara...cepat mahu balik..
Reason?? Rindu masakan Emak!!
Miss my girlfriend!!
Coach to harsh!!
Double DUHHH!!

Hmmmmm...!!

Rakesh Kumar said...

Malaysian football? Still got ah? Where? (Looking under the table).

Remember when we were kids, we actually used to have Malaysian footballers as hero? Gosh...whatever had happened.

You are right, they need competitiveness and Singapore must be invited back.

Anonymous said...

Come on.. the only time M'sian football was interesting was when during the 80's when Fandi Ahmad, K Kannan and gang were playing.. after that no more.. many players were on the take.. talk about integrity amongst M'sians...

Now wanna rejuvenate? Kidding me right Mr? Don't say i'm pessimistic.. think carefully.. you create a new league, some new crony without any knowledge will be put there as the president... then gets his cronies to propose billion dollar stadium lar etc.. they call it job / project creation ... then got leakage la, cracks la, because 10% will be spent to SUB, SUB, SUB, SUB,... SUB 5 times already... then poor contracter down the line have only few thousand ringgit to build it.. 90% will be profit for middle person.. then repropose new quotation to government.. then the cycle goes again la.. until public outcry then only seriously fix it..

Import foreigner? The more you import, the more they will say you're unpatriotic.. they will say foreigners stealing our jobs..

then back to square one..