KUALA LUMPUR – In the interest of the sport and the country, the Malaysia Rugby Union (MRU) has decided to take the high road.
The rugby body has pledged not to take any harsh actions towards the Sabah Rugby Union (SRU) for questioning the legitimacy of the association’s annual general meeting and the allegations of tampering its financial reports.
According to MRU, since the day the allegations were made, the association has been pressured within the sports fraternity to take drastic action by expelling SRU from the national body for tarnishing the association’s reputation.
Speaking to Scoop, MRU honorary secretary Fahmy Jalil said that it would not be fair to remove SRU from the association just because of the dissatisfaction of a few individuals.
“We can’t throw away a bunch of apples just because one of them is spoiled. The same goes for the case of SRU; we can’t decide to remove them just because of the allegations made towards us by certain individuals.
“SRU is not solely represented by these few individuals, as the association also has many esteemed coaches and players who were never involved in this chaos; hence, we don’t want to punish them as they have no say in this matter.
“The majority of players representing our national team are from Sabah, and if we were to remove SRU, none of the players would be able to play for the country anymore, which wouldn’t be fair for them as they didn’t do anything wrong.
“By removing SRU, it would also affect their player development programme for the sport as they wouldn’t be able to receive funds from the State Sports Council, and the state players wouldn’t be able to participate in state tournaments and also the Malaysian Games (Sukma) since they would no longer be affiliated with the governing body.
“Definitely, there will be repercussions from MRU for what SRU did, but our president Amir Amri Mohamad and the council will decide what kind of punishment can be given to the leadership of Sabah. MRU can guarantee that it will not impact the development and progress of the players and the coaches,” said Fahmy.
It was reported that SRU has decided to stay away from any activities or competitions organised by MRU until the national body responds to allegations about its accounts and the proceedings of the elections last December.
Fahmy also urged his association’s affiliates to speak directly to the governing body if they were to encounter any issues in the future.
“We have nothing to hide as we have already informed all our affiliates that the annual general meeting will be held without the non-audited accounts report.
“Thirty-five out of 39 affiliate members agreed to have the AGM, and I have no idea why SRU has to say that the meeting was illegitimate.
“The missing money case is still under police investigation, and of course, we can’t provide our affiliates with the audited report, and I wonder why SRU has failed to comprehend such a simple matter despite MRU informing them constantly.
“It’s actually disheartening to witness SRU acting in such an unprofessional way by making this into an issue when it could have been solved internally.
“I hope that in the future, if any of our affiliates have any trouble with MRU, please directly talk to us instead of trying to bring us down behind our back,” Fahmy added.
MRU faced controversy in December 2022 when it discovered that an administrative staff member had allegedly embezzled a large amount of money from the national body, with withdrawals exceeding RM1 million since 2019.
The case has been under police investigation since August of last year. – February 8, 2024