KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s national men’s team ranking has risen to 134 in the past year under Kim Pan-gon’s leadership. As a result, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) is putting pressure on the South Korean coach to push the team even higher in the future.
Speaking to Scoop, a highly placed source in the football fraternity revealed that FAM is working hard to achieve their F:30 programme roadmap by continuing to naturalise foreign players by the middle of next year.
Established in 2018, the F:30 programme serves as FAM’s roadmap for the next 12 years. One of its objectives is to re-establish Harimau Malaya as one of Asia’s top five teams by 2030 and to assemble a world-class national team capable of competing with the best.
It is believed that FAM has chosen six foreign players currently playing in the Malaysia Super League to be naturalised.
“Currently, FAM has six players ready to be naturalised (one Croatian, one Nigerian, one Argentinian, one Ghanaian, one Brazilian, and one South Korean), four of whom are from Perak FC, who were brought in by their former coach Lim Teong Kim in 2022.
“The players are aged between 20 and 28 years old, and FAM has learned from its mistakes by naturalising younger players and not rushing the process this time.
“The last time FAM naturalised older players like Guilherme de Paula and Liridon Krasniqi, it was a failure because the process was rushed to ensure qualification for next year’s AFC Asian Cup,” the source said.
Commenting on the matter, former Harimau Muda coach Azraai Khor Abdullah said that Malaysia will lose its identity if the national body continues to produce more naturalised players instead of focusing on developing young local talents.
“FAM needs to be serious about developing young local footballers in our country. FAM has been experimenting with the naturalisation process for many years, and we have yet to see any fruitful results.
“Many countries in the Southeast Asian region, such as Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, have stopped using naturalised players, while we are still relying on them.
“It is so disheartening to see so many of our current naturalised and heritage players who have no passion or patriotism for playing for our country. Most of them can’t even sing our national anthem at the start of the matches.
“We have a lot of talent, especially from local football clubs with U-17 teams and the Mokhtar Dahari Academy. It’s time for FAM to get their priorities straight before it is too late,” said Azraai.
Meanwhile, Malaysian football legend Datuk Dell Akbar Khan expressed a similar sentiment by saying that FAM has to balance its roles in managing both its naturalisation process and developing local players.
“There is nothing wrong with FAM bringing in naturalised players because there is no quota for naturalised players that they can have in a year, and they are not following any regulations.
“However, I also believe that FAM should give equal importance to developing local talents, as it’s important for Harimau Malaya in the long run,” said the former Kuala Lumpur police chief.
Gambia-born Mohamadou Sumareh became Malaysia’s first naturalised player, helping Harimau Malaya finish second in the 2018 AFF Cup.
FAM currently has four naturalised players (Paulo Josué, Nooa Laine, Endrick dos Santos, and Ezequiel Agüero) in Pan-gon’s squad, who recently finished as runners-up in the Pestabola Merdeka tournament. – October 26, 2023