LETTER | The World Cup tournament in Russia will kick off on the 14th, the eve of Hari Raya. What a sweet coincidence that Muslims celebrate both the end of the fasting month and another month of football-mania, that is Muslims who are football fans.

Less sweet though is Malaysia’s ranking in Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or Fifa, and their countless number of absences in World Cup tournaments. For those repulsed by football who say the sport is merely a game where 22 people chase for the ball, the response is an emphatic ‘NO’!

Football brings prestige for the individual player, for the team and for the coaching staff. It increases the size of their coffers too. While these ‘benefits’ are inevitable, football can also be a unifying factor in a country, a source of national pride. It can also be a reason to kill, a fate that Columbian footballer Andres Escobar suffered when he scored an own goal against his country in the 1994 World Cup. His goal eliminated Columbia from the first round.

Football stirs up a mixture of emotions in people, to say the least. The Bukit Jalil Stadium is an example of national euphoria at its best. With a capacity of about 80,000, Malaysian pride rears its Malaysian head when a goal is scored against rivals such as Indonesia and Singapore. The countries often play each other during Asian competitions, with Malaysia vs Singapore being about more than just football.

The Bukit Jalil National Stadium was named ‘2018 Stadium of The Year’ at the World Stadium Congress Awards in Amsterdam, surpassing even the Stade de France! To be recognised internationally for our sports facilities is important but there is another prize that has eluded Malaysia: the World Cup tournament. Malaysia has in fact never played in the tournament. In 1993, their Fifa ranking was 79.

Twenty-five years later, their ranking has dropped to 171, a drop of more than 100 percent. Malaysia’s halcyon days of football stardom go back to the 1970s and 1980s, enjoying huge results as they beat countries such as S Korea to qualify for the Olympics. Fast-forward to today, match-fixing scandals and fat salaries of footballers discourage them from reaching greater heights. Fifty years ago, football revolved around passion. Now, it revolves around money.

Arrogance is a stumbling block too. Former president of the Football Association of Malaysia Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim diagnosed Malaysia’s football crisis as hubris, nothing how some senior players acted as though they were bigger than the national team. He further commented that “such players already exist in the system. It is also the duty of state teams and clubs to identify and control such a problem from the very beginning”.

Malaysian football requires a change in attitude from the players but also efforts by clubs in grooming its players according to the right mentality. Foreign coaches and players are a nice aesthetic, but meaningless without the right mindset on the pitch.

When European teams come to Malaysia as part of their pre-season tours, football fans are out in full support. Well, not so much for the Harimau Malaya. There are probably more fans in Malaysia of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo then there are of Safee Sali, although of course, Sali himself deserves credit as a footballer.

When you realise that Iceland, a country of barely 350,000 people, will have the honour of playing footballing giants Argentina in a few weeks’ time, you start to wonder why a country of 32,000,000 struggles to make it past the first round of the World Cup qualifying games.

Hopefully, we will see an article one day that celebrates Malaysia’s entry into the World Cup. Perhaps the headline will read ‘Malaysia’s day of reckoning at Qatar 2022’. For now, obstacles such as match-fixing, inefficiency in the football administration and footballers’ attitudes need to be overcome before we can get excited about playing in the big league.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.