The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has promised to return the national team to its glory days after the embarrassing defeats suffered in recent World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying campaign matches.
The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has promised to return the national team to its glory days after the embarrassing defeats suffered in recent World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying campaign matches.
Malaysia are currently bottom of Group A in the qualifying tournament after earning just one point from their four games thus far.
The Tigers opened their campaign with a 1-1 draw at home against minnows East Timor, lost 6-0 to Palestine at home, suffered a 10-0 drubbing away to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and lost 2-1 to Saudi Arabia at home.
FAM has moved quickly to appease the team’s livid fans, who caused the game against Saudi Arabia to be stopped in the 88thminute when they threw lit flares onto the pitch at the Shah Alam Stadium.
"We know football fans are disappointed with what is happening to Malaysian football and the incident (at the qualifying match)," FAM deputy president Afandi Hamzah told Asia One.
"Hence, at this meeting we decided that we need to bring back Malaysian football to its glory days with a greater focus on developing grassroots talent, enhancing local leagues and improving FAM itself.”
The defeat against Saudi Arabia was Ong Kim Swee first match in charge as caretaker coach, following Dollah Salleh’s resignation just two days after the 10-0 defeat to the UAE.
The defeats have seen Malaysia slip to 169th on the world rankings, just one place above the nation’s all-time low of 170th.
Shah Alam Stadium security stepped up
The police have assured that Saturday's Malaysia Cup match between Salangor and Kelantan at the Shah Alam Stadium will be incident free following crowd violence in a recent World Cup qualifier there.
The Shah Alam Municipal Council police have assured that Saturday’s Malaysia Cup match between Salangor and Kelantan at the Shah Alam Stadium will be incident free following the crowd violence that marred the national team’s Asian Cup and World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
Malaysia went on to lose 2-1 after the game was stopped in the 88th minute when fans unleashed a barrage of lit flares onto the pitch.
Shafien Mamat, assistant commander of the police, told Asia Onethat the security errors which occurred at the game would be corrected.
"I was there and the weakness I saw was the Rela officers were just sitting at the gate that was unlocked,” he said.
“So when the people came and pushed open the gate, another 30 or 50 people managed to go in.
"We believe these people also brought in illegal items. But this Saturday we will be monitoring these gates.”
Apart from trying to stop fans from bringing the flares into the stadium, the police are also set to investigate where exactly they were purchased.
Several other items which were previously allowed into the stadium will now be considered contraband.
Food vendors will also be required to enter the stadium through a different gate to spectators and will be thoroughly searched.
"I’ll give an example, the drumsticks they use to beat the drums in the stadium, these can actually be used as weapons. So they will have to leave them outside before going in," Mamat said.
"We are going to see football, let that be all. Let's not do anything else dangerous. Let us just watch football peacefully. Let what happened last week be a lesson."
A group of fans known as Ultras Malaya are believed to have been responsible for throwing the flares onto the pitch and 11 people were arrested on Thursday after the police released pictures of the suspects.
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