Wednesday, July 28, 2010

FAM Congress: Redux

As we count the days to the FAM elections that bear much significance to the short and medium term futures of Malaysian football, campaigning has taken an ugly turn. Dato’ Che Mat Jusoh, the current VP for FAM has launched a verbal tirade against his fellow candidates for the Deputy President posts in Utusan last week.

With incumbent YB Khairy Jamaluddin not defending his post, the howitzer has been rolled toward no other than current KAFA President Tan Sri Annuar Musa. But whilst criticism against opponents are what they are, it is especially sickening to see Che Mat taking credit for programs he had little to do with in his desperate attempt to win votes. Specifically, he went as far as claiming responsibility for the successes of Harimau Muda, which had nothing to do with him, as his portfolio was the Competitions Committee. The Committee is known to be in shambles over the past decade. State and Club teams are consistently infuriated with constant changes for games schedules to the point that some do not even know when the actual new local league season actually starts until far too close to the date.

Che Mat Jusoh will be contesting with long time friend and incumbent Dato' Sheikh Redzuan for the 2 Deputy posts. Both running mates are no new faces to local football and offer no real block busting changes or ideas. To add to the already volatile mix, YM Tengku Mahkota Abdullah has offered himself again for the DP post. Technically, the Crown Prince is a very astute and knowledgeable football administrator. His greatest feat was to professionalise the Malaysian game, and did so in the hardest of times when the big tobacco money was forced to pullout. For that, some credit must go to YM Tengku.

Other than onfield football results and development, one of the main KPIs of FAM football administrators have been sponsors. If you had to boil down the malaise of Malaysian football over the past decade or so to just one factor, it has to be the lack of money. For this, FAM needs marketable faces and those who can foster good relations with current and potential sponsors. Che Mat and Redzuan are clearly not capable to fulfil any of the KPIs listed.

Stories of FAM 'suits' sauntering football matches and related programmes adding no value whatsoever can be well described by the diabolical duo. With Dato’ Mokhtar Ahmad (Selangor FA), Tan Sri Annuar Musa (KAFA) offering themselves, it is unclear who YM Tengku Adullah would favour as his running mate. Nonetheless, recent developments show that Tan Sri Annuar Musa's Kelantan FA's rebuilding programme is quite hard to ignore. From the throes of defeat in FAM league playing semi pro and amateur teams, Kelantan are now 5 points behind leaders Selangor in the Super League.

Many speculated outgoing the Deputy President would not get any nominations, but this turned out to not be the case at all. Notable advances from Kelantan, Selangor, Melaka and Perlis were amongst the states that called on YB Khairy remain for another term. Khairy, however, was adamant that he wanted to focus on politics.

The determination to turn around the fortunes of Malaysian football undoubtedly is on all the candidates main agenda. However, noone can fully foretell the mood much less what is on the minds of the 38 delegates that will be casting their votes. What I’m pretty certain of is that the likes of Redzuan and Che Mat Jusoh should be riding into the sunset. Let’s see if the delegates agree.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

KJ shlda stayed on, fight it out. Why leave?

Anonymous said...

and you'd think the one elected / any candidate wld really REALLY care about Malaysian football? KJ should really stay on, but guess the one that really makes a difference gets booted out; like anywhere else around here.

Anonymous said...

Kj good in football management, but bad in Political management.