Dire Straits Malaysian football!?

We were talking football yesterday morning, Malaysian Football. Just when there was some sign of restoration of country’s football pride, we are given a rude shock.. we drew 1-1 Thursday night but lost to our neighbour on 6-4 aggregate…

There were talks about players being pampered too much, spoiled yesteryear Malaysian badminton heroes were quoted as obvious examples and sterling heroes such as Wong Peng Soon, Tan Aik Huang, Chin Aun, Santokh Singh, Arumugam, SuperMokh, Ghani Minhat were equally mentioned.. Then I recounted several examples of Malaysian heroes that were not pampered that did not make good ;(

IMHO, player’s success in his life as player and “life after the limelight’ is up to the player himself/herself, his/her physical and emotional upbringings/make-ups . Those around him/her would also play a part to his/her success/failure.

Talk then moved to yesteryears when Japanese and South Korean footballs were in the same league as Malaysia. They have enough money and good vision to bring in good players to their leagues to improve their lots. Malaysian league also saw football imports albeit cheaper imports for few years only to lose them for some reasons best not to be discussed here.

Then discussion moved to management.. politicians, VIP etcetera and quickly diverted to serious topic on “Rise up for Rummenigge’s revolution” written by Bob Holmes in “the Sun”dated June 29, the article concludes

“Something has been radically wrong with the way football has been run for decades and it is surely good news that something may at long last be done about it. As a fan of the underdog, this column is uneasy about the big boys running the show but the Blatters and Platinis have quite frankly left no alternative to revolution. As they used to say beside the guillotine: “Off with their heads!”.

Malaysian football may need such a revolution as far as FAM is concerned but I am not very keen to delve too deep in football politics.. I quickly switched topic and made the following suggestion to improve Malaysian football:-

“Now that we have few football clubs in England (Today’s (30 June 2011) Star reported TS Tony Fernandes, AirAsia CEO, has been linked with a 100 million Sterling Pound move to buy EPL new boys Queens Park Rangers ) that is partly own by Malaysian maybe The Malaysian part-owner can be kind and generous enough to recruit our good football players to be trained there”.

“Now listen, you have to have some level of football standard to be playing with them ” came a very curt and sharp reply.

It was then yours truly make this observation (relating our Oil and Gas(O&G) experience with our current football predicament)

“When Petronas was formed in 1974, nobody in O&G fraternity gave 2 hoots about Petronas staff’s technical ability.. Our forefathers were smart enough to put in the Petroleum Sharing Contract agreement clauses that allow PETRONAS technical staff to be trained in PS Contractors office and operation worksites. It may take a few years but now we can see out technical staff being pinched/sought out by most O&G companies. Our technical personnel are so highly sought that there are few Middle Eastern O&G companies that conduct open interviews twice a year for a few days at a time”".

The direction for Malaysian football can take a similar route.. the Malaysian part owner of those EPL clubs can lend a helping hand to steer Malaysian football in a better direction.

P.s.
Should post this yesterday.. I was hauled up to join the shopping chaos in Sogo yesterday evening, tonight have to go again to put finishing touch to Sogo shopping.. another one of my not so many Ramadhan preparation.. to complete all the baju Raya shopping before the Ramadhan. ;))) Lo and behold Sunday morning and early afternoon saw me at Sogo changing shirts that were a bit too tight and fulfilling new shopping requirement from my daughter and our helper...Arghhhhhhhh!

Have a good day and productive month of Ramadhan