Malaysia have failed to meet the criteria and standards set by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Pro-League ad-hoc committee, who have recommended 11 countries for eligibility to field teams in the AFC Champions League next year.
The assessment was based on 10 aspects… organisation, technical standards, attendance, governance, marketing and promotion, business scale, match organisation, media, stadiums and clubs. Of the 21 countries (assessed), Malaysia were ranked 18th. [Thestar]
Seems like Malaysian football is sinking deeper and deeper into nowhere. Set the standard of players aside, I can understand that we simply lack the football talent to succeed at the highest level… but what’s the excuse for Malaysia to be disqualified from the competition?
The standard of our football teams is just one of the criteria, the rest are mostly organisational standards. Our footballing bodies from FAM at the top to clubs management at the bottom level should take the blame for this issue. After millions of dollars being spent into the sport, this is certainly not something that Malaysians are hoping for.
Well, pointing fingers is meaningless now… what we need is to find solutions in rebuilding our local league and improving our standard, but FAM clearly have no solid plans that are executable at the moment. Lots of their programs are ad-hoc and not aiming for any long term revival.
From the current development, the future of Malaysian football is not looking good at all.
ESPN has apologised to Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) for displaying the wrong FAM logo on Feb 13 during a live telephone call to FAM secretary-general Datuk Azzuddin Ahmad.
The parodied FAM logo
During the Sportscenter Asia broadcast on Wednesday, ESPN showed a parodied-logo instead of the official FAM logo.
It’s reported by Utusan that the staff from Sportscenter Asia had searched for the logo online and had mistaken that as the official logo.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the ‘logo’ on Jeffrey’s website… how on earth could the ESPN staff mistaken this as the official logo? The parodi-ness is blatantly obvious.
FAM website under construction &
Malaysia web development
FAM website has been under construction for quite some time, and the ESPN staff obviously couldn’t get the logo from an official source. The website would only be back by March 1 according to Azzuddin.
It is a shame that FAM’s website has to be taken down for weeks for reconstruction. This actually exposed a serious issue on how incompetence some web development companies in Malaysia are and how some Malaysian websites are poorly managed.
I don’t count myself as an IT expert, but if I were to handle the FAM’s website reconstruction, the website shouldn’t be down for more than 2 hours; worst case scenario… 48 max. All the contents building and testing should have been done without taking down the site.
I don’t want to bore you with the technicalities… another prime example of poor website management can be seen from the Parliament official website where Chua Soi Lek is still listed as our health minister despite resigning for almost 2 months following his sex scandal.
The Tengku Mahkota of Pahang, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, has resigned as deputy president of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) with immediate effect.
Tengku Abdullah did not give any reason for his resignation; Bernama thinks that his decision to quit from all posts in FAM is seen as his reaction to fulfil the requests of football fans that the present FAM leadership make way for new blood who could bring changes to the local football scene. [Bernama]
I actually think that Tengku Abdullah should resign much earlier; his reign at FAM was not working well obviously. I don’t really blame him though… he is not solely responsible for the slump of our nation football. In fact his apology to the fans on Wednesday after the China defeat has earned some respect from me.
The troubling thing with Malaysian football these days is that nobody has a real clue on what is happening and what can be done to turn back the tide. The fans and critics could only slam the players and the management for the poor performances, but nobody seems capable to come out with a solid plan to revitalise Malaysian soccer.
I can only hope that a real capable person with the right vision and capability will take over Tengku Abdullah’s position.
I went to watch the Asian Cup game between Malaysia and China in (we lost 1-5) at Bukit Jalil. Here are some of my thoughts after the match…
Publicity
I have read an article from a foreign journalist about his (I assumed) experience in KL… he mentioned that he saw lots of billboards everywhere in the city, but saw nothing about the Asian Cup; he had a feeling that he was at the wrong city for the games… I guess some Malaysians shared the same sentiment too, I know I do.
I can’t recall the organizer taking aggressive methods in pulling the crowd and selling the tickets, or to promote the event. I felt that the Malaysian organizers are taking the event too lightly… for goodness sake, it is one of the largest sporting event in Asia, the world (or at least lots of Asians) are watching the competition; it is a good chance to show how good we are in hosting a major sporting event, or how bad instead.
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The AFC Asian Cup 2007 has kicked off! This is probably the first ever major sporting event around the world to be co-hosted by 4 countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam)… the first match in Malaysia will be held on Tuesday (July 10) at Bukit Jalil Stadium, with Malaysia playing against China.
I felt that the publicity for the event is quite poor in Malaysia; I don’t see many banners around the city, and I don’t see many advertisements about the tournament on TV or newspapers. Hopefully the stadium won’t be too empty during the matches.
Below is the schedule of the matches (in Malaysia)…
July 10 (2035) - Malaysia vs China (Bukit Jalil)
July 11 (1820) - Iran vs Uzbekistan (Bukit Jalil)
July 14 (1820) - Malaysia vs Uzbekistan (Bukit Jalil)
July 15 (1820) - China vs Iran (Bukit Jalil)
July 18 (2035) - Malaysia vs Iran (Bukit Jalil)
July 18 (2035) - China vs Uzbekistan (Shah Alam)
July 22 (1820) - Quarter final (Bukit Jalil)
July 25 (1820) - Semi final (Bukit Jalil)
Try going for a game a two if possible and show some support for our team and to show our hospitality as a host for the game.