Causes For The Downfall of Malaysian National Football Team

The Causes:

1. The poor state of affairs of the State FAs and the FA of Malaysia (FAM); Too many businessmen and politicians interference in football management. FAM is in constant denial. It is unable to think out of the box. The structure of football management by FAM has too many weaknesses.


2. The lack of proper development programmes at grassroots levels in districts and schools; We do not have a proper development plans to groom junior players. If we look at successful clubs in other countries, they have very comprehensive and systematic development plans for their clubs. The clubs start developing their players from the age of 12. These clubs are the foundation of the national teams' development. National players are usually picked from the clubs based on their performance while playing for their clubs. A country that has a successful local soccer league would usually have a successful national team.

3. The low standard of the M-League. We need the league in order to groom and select players for the national and the national youth teams. We have the money, we have the facility and we have the expertise but what is sorely lacking is the proper and systematic development of the game. In other words, we do not have proper human resource development plans.



The fact that the format of the local league changes almost every other year does not help. In fact, in the good old days, when our soccer standard at its peak, was when the premier league was played among state teams while clubs played in lower leagues.

4. No quality players. Players should be working hard to improve on their individual skills. Our national footballers either have one or none of the critical attributes required to bring success for our nation. A few Malaysian footballers might be skillful, but lacked the fitness or the mentality. Or they might have the skills and fitness but lacked discipline.