We Split Responsibility And We Share The Blames

The minister and the sultan: Clueless couple

At least that is how it seems when FAM President, Sultan Ahmad Shah welcomed the decision by the Sports Ministry to adopt U-19 Malaysian team, popularly known as Harimau Muda (Young Tigers).

“We did the programmes before but could not continue due to financial constraints,” said Sultan Ahmad Shah, whose 25 years tenure as the president saw FAM receiving RM300 million in sponsorship from tobacco company Dunhill from the year 1997 to 2005.

“It cost around RM40 million annually to organise tournaments at grassroots level but FAM sponsorship revenue is only RM19million,” added Sports Minister Ismail Sabri who will be managing the Harimau Muda squad soon.

The Ministry of Football was quick to bring out our ever trusted abacus and simple mathematic calculation shows that RM300 million from 1997 to 2005 equal to RM37.5 million annually, plenty enough for football development at senior and junior levels.

But what actually happened to the RM300 million given generously by Dunhill?

Poorly managed grassroots level tournament which now ceased to exist, a top flight league which suffer from constant changes and a national football team that performs well on a downward spiral.

Surely something is wrong with our national football governing body?

“We should not point fingers and put the blame solely on FAM,” said Ismail Sabri further, gently reminding that the next time Malaysian football enter another episode of humiliation we can also channel our frustration to his ministry.

Maybe the decision to split the responsibility, FAM managing the senior side while Sports Ministry taking the junior team, has been made to serve either of these two purposes.

One, to lessen the burden on the shoulder of our vain and worryingly clueless Football Association of Malaysia.

Or number two, to ensure when thing goes wrong again with our football, FAM will have partner in the Sports Ministry to absorb all the blame, aggravation and anger from Malaysians.

All credit goes to the sultan and the minister for this marvellous idea.

M-League Is Not Football, But It Might Be Petanque

We guessed it right; the Malaysia vs. UAE match is one prime example of good attacking football, five goals scored in total. Definitely the lads played it as the gaffer wished, all-out offensive. Our potent strikers have shown their acute goal-scoring sense, yes?

But wait, a quick look on the goal scorer list did not mention any of our Harimau Malaya squad. So it is the same chapter again, the gaffer said we are going on the offensive, and UAE surely thanks us for that as they net five against nothing.

The Ministry is not amazed by that.

However the most shocking revelation of all came from the gaffer himself during the post match conference. “The M-League is not football,” said B Sathianathan. No, we are not shocked with the statement ‘M-League is not football’, because we already knew that many years ago. What is shocking to us is why on earth did Sathia wasted the media time during such conference to state the obvious fact?

That ‘M-League is not football’ is a well known fact, but the dying question is, what freaking sport is M-League attached to?

No one can give the definite answer. The Ministry attempted to conduct a study on this but then our scope of power is limited to only football matter. The fact that ‘M-League is not football’ means that it is beyond our ministerial jurisdiction.

So we shall leave that to the Ministry of Petanque, if there is any or to whatever Ministry dares to lay their claim on the M-League.

Meanwhile at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, beacon of Malaysian football, the FA president has called for an executive council meeting on 31st January. According to FAM general secretary Azzuddin Ahmad, the exco would discuss the next course of action following the national team’s latest mortification.

“The FAM view seriously the performance of the national team and we are going to discuss all aspects, including regarding the coach and players,” said Azzuddin. The Ministry’s follow-up question on whether they would discuss the issue of poor administration by the FAM, however remain unheeded.

The FAM also declined to reveal what is on the menu that is going to be serve during the executive council meeting, but reliable sources indicate that it will be the usual ‘dining of the royalties’ and most of the executive council members are already salivating on such grandeur banquet.

We can only be in awe.