Change your affiliates’ attitude first, FAM

THE foreign legion is set to make a comeback next season – after a three-year absence.

Will it be good for Malaysian football?

Or will local talent suffer because of their presence?

Let’s take a look at what happened a few years back when the foreign players plied their trade here.

· Case No. 1: Christian Bekamenga Be­­ka­mengo left Malaysian football in disgust after his employers sent the kitman to negotiate his contract extension. The Cameroon striker went on to play in Indonesia (Persib Bandung) and France (FC Nantes) before featuring at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

· Case No. 2: Juan Manuel Aros­te­gui made history in Malaysian football when he scored all three goals in the final against Sabah to inspire Selangor MPPJ to Malaysia Cup glory in 2003. But his return to the club in 2006 turned out to be a nightmare. The club faced financial problems and did not pay him his salaries and bonuses. The former Argentine youth international, who had played alongside the likes of Juan Roman Riquelme and Juan Sebastian Veron, quit the team in a huff.

· Case No. 3: Nigerian Ibironke Olu­watobi was short-changed by his employers when they gave him a bicycle instead of a car as stipulated in his contract with a northern club side. He was even threatened with deportation if he lodged a complaint with the parent body. This player has since quit the game and settled down in Kuala Lumpur.

Things are not any better now, either.

Recently, the FA of Malaysia’s (FAM) disciplinary committee punished a club side for sending their kitman to the team managers’ meeting!

Malaysian football went fully professional in 1994. That’s 17 years ago and we still have to deal with such clowns.

So much for professionalism.

Yes, Malaysian Super League (MSL) chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa deserves praise for wanting to make the league more competitive and more professional.

But his idea is nothing new.

Seven years ago, FAM deputy president Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah spearheaded a similar major overhaul with the introduction of the MSL, which was his last throw of the dice to raise the standard of football in the country.

He wanted to see changes and im­­­­­­provement in the administration, development programmes, profes­sion­­­alism of the affiliates, quality of the league and players. But his efforts hit the skids, no thanks to affiliates who were not receptive to new ideas.

It was not surprising then that we even failed the Asian Football Con­­­fe­deration’s (AFC) assessment of profes­sional leagues in Asia three years ago.

Tengku Abdullah’s MSL focused only on the top eight football teams in the country. And they were set high standards, including eventually owning their own team buses and stadiums.

But the affiliates, who seem to know nothing about professionalism, could not meet those requirements.

In the end, the MSL reverted to featuring 14 teams until now.

The affiliates are unable to cope with professional football because they are run by selfish people with personal agendas.

The result – none of the MSL teams have been able to qualify for the lu­­crative Asian Champions League, thus depriving the players of a chance to play in such a top-flight competition.

For Annuar’s initiative to work, the affiliates have to embrace change and be privatised. For that to happen, the deadwoods have to make way for young and innovative personnel to take over.

But just like Tengku Abdullah’s ill-fated endeavour, Annuar’s effort is likely to meet with a dead end as well because the affiliates are still being run by same bunch of people.

So, instead of embarking on a project that has been tried – and failed – maybe FAM should look at sending our promising players overseas on attachment programmes.

The Harimau Muda squad benefited from such a programme when they were sent to play in the Slovakian League last year. The players showed tremendous improvement – both technically and tactically.

Stop relying on the affiliates, FAM. They will never change.