LET me be honest. The last time I bought a ticket to watch a local game in the country was the Malaysia Cup final between Sarawak and Brunei in 1999.
The match was held at the good old Merdeka Stadium in downtown Kuala Lumpur. I took the trouble to turn up because my home state, Sarawak, were in the final for the first time. Secondly, it was convenient to get to Merdeka Stadium as long as you don't drive there.
It really didn't matter to me that Brunei won the Cup scoring the solitary goal that night. What matters then and now is that Malaysian football has become so 'un-enjoyable'. The thrill and excitement are so lacking, even for a Cup final.
So why are we not surprised that this year's final was played to a near-empty Bukit Jalil Stadium?
If you were to ask me what is wrong with football in Malaysia now, I will tell you honestly that "I don't know".
In fact, don't be surprised to get the same reply if you were to ask FAM (Football Association of Malaysia) officials the same question.
So, you don't know, I don't know, they don't know. Only God knows perhaps.
Soon after the June's World Cup was over, a popular joke was making its rounds via sms.
It goes like this: "A Korean asked God when will Korea win the World Cup. God replied, in 100 years. The Korean cried as he would not be able to see that happening in his life time. Then a Japanese asked God the same question. When God said in 200 years, the Japanese cried as he would not be able to witness it in his life time. Finally, A Malaysian asked God when will Malaysia win the World Cup. This time, God cried!"
For a moment, we will smile or even laugh at that joke. I take my hat off to whoever came up with that. It's healthy that we, Malaysians, are able to laugh at ourselves sometimes. Or at the standard of our football, to be precise.
In a miserable 146th spot
Taking it seriously however, the declining standard of Malaysian football is no laughing matter.
Even before the smiles began to leave our faces last June, FIFA announced the world's ranking and quite unexpectedly, Malaysia dropped to 146th position, a massive 19 rungs from the May list.
Malaysia's ranking among Asian teams is 29, behind the likes of even Bangladesh (143) and Sri Lanka, who don't have anything near the structure Malaysian football has.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysia are ranked fifth behind Singapore (111), Thailand (113), Indonesia (139) and Vietnam (141).
Surely, that's no laughing matter.
The issue was also brought up in Parliament that month and rightly so, members of Parliament were very unhappy. They even took pot shots at the FAM.
A Sabah MP and obviously a big football fan, Abdul Ghapur Salleh, challenged FAM officials to accept responsibility for this and resign en bloc.
"I am challenging FAM officials from the top to the bottom to quit en bloc," he said to the thumping by some MPs.
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.
While I think that FAM should shoulder a large part of the blame for the malaise in Malaysian football, I also feel it's unfair to put it squarely on them.
To be fair to FAM, they have made efforts to up the ante of our football standard. The Semi-Pro league and later, the Professional League were introduced. Now, clubs are permitted to participate in the Super League and Malaysia Cup. Foreign players were also roped in to help make the league more exciting and, hopefully, to lift its standard.
Despite all these, there is still little to show. Our football standard continues its plunge. So what is really wrong?
Key word is patriotism
Let me share with you all a letter which I've read in a national daily soon after the conclusion of the World Cup. I share the sentiments of the writer.
He wrote, "Malaysia can learn many lessons from the just-concluded World Cup. To qualify for the final round a nation need not be huge. The population need not be large. The country need not be rich. It need not be developed.
"Religions play no role. Race is never a factor. Language is immaterial. Past records were irrelevant. All that is required is determination and patriotism of the players of a nation to win for their country run by equally determined, patriotic and intelligent management.
"A huge country like Russia did not qualify but a small country like Costa Rica did. India and China, despite their huge populations, were not in. Trinidad and Tobago made it. A poor country like Paraguay succeeded. A rich nation like Canada failed to qualify.
"Developed Belgium was not in but undeveloped Ghana made the grade. Players of all religions were represented. Whether white, black, yellow or mixed, they were all there. France had seven players of African descent. Languages were never a factor. Nations speaking different languages were there.
"Japan and South Korea, once on par with or even below par to Malaysia, are a force to be reckoned with, indicating history is of no importance. Thus what we need is to get more young Malaysians to take up the game by having more football fields and a more forward-looking FAM management."
I think the key word from the letter is patriotism.
God should cry
Do we, Malaysians have that much patriotism for our country? If we have, we would have joined the ranks of South Korea and Japan in the World Cup finals, as we were once superior to these nations.
I think we had all the national patriotism before, but this is regrettably slowly slipping by. All we can do is sadly stand idle and watch this patriotism to the nation being substituted by "over-patriotism" to one's own race, religion and material wealth.
Even as I pen this article this week, there is that loud proclamation from the FAM that the proposed high-performance training centre to be set up in Brickendonbury, London will help to raise the standard of Malaysian football.
I really hope so. I doubt Ghana or Trinidad and Tobago could ever dream of having a RM490 million football stadium and this is what we are spending on a mere training centre, all high performance and what not!
Then there is the "No Criticism, We are FAM" tag of our football governing body which has just suspended a 68-year-old state football manager for three years - and for the second time too. FAM leaders, it seems, are beyond criticisms.
I thought we are now in an era of growing transparency, accountability and good governance. Why is the FAM going backward by wasting precious time banning officials who criticise it when they should be concentrating on the development of football in the country?
Perhaps, yes perhaps, God really has a reason to cry for Malaysia.
FRANCIS PAUL is so fed-up with the state of Malaysian football that he is unable to name even one national footballer today. He can be reached at [email protected] ( Selected letters from readers will be published )
