As you may have heard or read, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and the Malaysian Football League are being investigated by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for violation of club licensing regulations.
This was after Kuala Lumpur City FC received a club licence for the 2024-25 M-League season, despite allegedly not paying Employees Provident Fund contributions since February 2023.
Punishment seems to be inevitable. AFC could take away FAM’s gun and badge.
FAM seems to be an all-consuming entity, and at many times, dysfunctional. But I love it with a passion.
So, when I read that the AFC would most likely suspend FAM, I felt sick. This is because if AFC decides to impose a blanket suspension like the one they imposed on Indonesia, Iran, and India, it would create an enormous black hole in the centre of my heart.
For more than a decade, I have vigorously thrown myself into my job – sports marketing with a special focus on sponsorship architecture, representation, and audit. And these past couple of years, I have invested much of my time and money in acquiring clients related to Malaysian football.
Idiotically, this will all end up in the gutter, along with FAM, if AFC decides to impose a collective form of punishment.
I suppose it helps a little if I imagine myself among people and friends of similar interest, hanging out in the gutter, shamelessly talking about the past and the current performances of Lion City Sailors simply because Malaysia doesn’t exist in the AFC Champions League anymore.
But playing patience is not the answer. Because, when you get bored (which you will), you will realise that you stand an increased chance of developing prostate cancer, and you will live in a constant state of anxiety and depression.
And so we get to the nub of the issue. If AFC were to impose a suspension like what it did to Indonesia in 2015 for serious violations of Articles 13 and 17 of the FIFA Statutes resulting from prolonged government interference in the affairs of the association, would it be deemed a form of collective punishment, and would it be fair?
I’m sure that the licensing violations are not as severe as the prolonged government interference in the affairs of the association. But even if they were, it would be unfair to impose the punishment generally, as it would implicate other honest football clubs that are innocent, and not complicit to that shameless infraction.
Collective punishment violates the principle of individual responsibility and can lead to resentment and further conflict.
Thus, I would like to make a recommendation – that if FAM and the guardian of the domestic leagues are found guilty in the investigations, AFC should only revoke and suspend the national body’s right to issue the ‘license to play’.
This would mean that Malaysian football clubs would need to obtain their licences directly from AFC or a neighbouring football association.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
Main image: Kuala Lumpur City FC
