2 Cents 2some: Malaysian Football Today... a Humiliation... a Disaster

The Malaysian football team was once respected and highly regarded in the International arena, acknowledged among the best in Asia. But those days are long gone now. You won't see any players like Dollah Salleh, Santokh Singh, Mokhtar Dahari or Soh Chin Aun anymore in the current Malaysian League. Players of their caliber no longer exist in Malaysian football. During their time, Malaysia was ranked among the top 5 teams in Asia and top 50 in the world.

Quote from Wikipedia:
"Malaysia's first Olympic appearance was in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Although beaten by hosts West Germany 0-3 and Morocco 0-6, Malaysia did beat the USA 3-0. The best years of Malaysian football were from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, during which time Malaysia and South Korea were the two main rivals in East Asia."

Look at where we are now (FIFA Rankings)... latest ranking seed us at 169 out of 200. St. Kitts and Nevis??? Who are they? But they're higher than us. They're at 156. This is nonsense. Most African countries do not have proper training facilities and coaches but look at them, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Togo and Senegal proved to be forces to be reckoned with in the past World Cups. Segenal beat France! Malaysia can't even compete with a small island called Singapore! Some of these African nations do not even buy proper equipment like football boots for their players (talking about poor countries like Zimbabwe and Niger) and they still play amazing football. Our Malaysian player only get the best of everything but they produce nothing... why?

Another sad fact about Malaysian football... would you believe that our M-League Football teams who claim to be cash-strapped pay foreign player tonnes of money to play for them. I was reported 2 or 3 years ago that the highest salary for a foreign player in the M-League at that time was RM16,000 per month. The highest paid Malaysian footballer at that time was Indra Putra and he was getting only RM12,000. My point is that if we can't afford such insane salaries, why can't we just use our local players. The most match experience our local players get, the better they get. That's a good way to improve the quality of Malaysian football.

Another amazing fact: The Malaysian national team changes it coach so often that even most of the Malaysian public doesn't know who the current coach is. What I don't get is why doesn't the FA let the coach have at least 2 or 3 years to implement changes to the team, instead of expecting results overnight. When the Malaysia hockey team did so badly last year (i think, can't remember it that well), they disbanded the team, saying that the team didn't deserve to be sponsored by the Government because they did so badly. From what I've seen, the football team did even worse than them but why didn't the government take the same action against them? Because its backed by royalty (head of the FA at that time was the Sultan of Pahang) and politicians (Khairi Jamaluddin is the Vice-President of the FA now)? I believe that sports and politics should not mix at all.

The government says that it will take Malaysia another 20 to 30 years to be good at football and able to compete in the World Cup. I would say that I would never happen as long as the government keeps interfering and players keep getting pampered.