The national football team's dismal global ranking prompted Abdul Ghapur Salleh (BN-Kalabakan) to challenge FAM (Football Association of Malaysia) officials to accept responsibility for this and resign en bloc .

He made the challenge when Youth and Sports Ministry parliamentary secretary S A Vigneswaran ( left ) told the Dewan Rakyat today that Malaysia was 146th in the world football ranking.

"I am challenging FAM officials from the top to the bottom to quit en bloc. We hand over FAM (management) to MyTeam, maybe there'll be some hope," he said to the thumping of the table by some MPs.

MyTeam is a private initiative to unearth new football talents under a reality programme. Selected players undergo training under the guidance of former national footballer and commentator Serbegeth Singh.

According to Bernama , Ghapur said 30 years given to FAM to restore Malaysia's excellence in football after the golden era of Abdul Ghani Minhat and Mokhtar Dahari was too long.

FAM is headed by Pahang Sultan Ahmad Shah while his son Tengku Abdullah is his deputy.

Grant citizenship

During question time, Vigneswaran said the ministry was disappointed with the drastic drop in the football quality but denied that the FAM leadership did not work hard to improve the situation.

Meanwhile, Raja Ahmad Zainuddin Raja Ahmad (BN-Larut), who is also a vice-president of FAM, said Malaysia could qualify to the World Cup finals if the government was prepared to grant citizenship to highly talented foreigners.

He said France did so before it won the World Cup in 1998 besides other countries like Portugal, Switzerland and Holland.

He said a walker from China and a shooter from Ukraine have been granted Malaysian citizenship and similarly if foreign players were offered the same status, the quality of football could be improved.

Responding to this, Vigneswaran said FAM must write in formally for the ministry to consider.