Malaysia has an interesting fact. Before we go there, let's take a look at some countries first.
The American's national sport is baseball. For the Phillipines it's basketball. For Pakistan it's hockey. Now what is common in all of these countries? All are good in their sports.
In Malaysia, the national sport is football. But look at the current level of football as compared with other sports in this country. It's pathetic, embarrassing. Let me list out sports in Malaysia in which the state is better than football: badminton, squash, tenpin bowling, lawn bowling, track & field, aquatic sports, video piracy, illegal racing, and...ok, so maybe we can count the last two out. But this fact is significant because these are not national sports.
Recently, we had the Malaysia Cup. Anybody watched it? Me neither. In case you don't already know, only about 2/5 of the stadium was full on that night. And that is not a lot. It either shows that people are not interested in Malaysian football, or they don't know how to drive to Bukit Jalil. Guess which.
There are many problems, and I'll go with the biggest. The quality of play is horrible. I mean, missing sitters, poor ball control, everything is a problem. Heck, even little Singapore beat us in football (not to mention so many other things excluding good food). Enthusiasm is also one. I mean, watching the Malaysian Under-21 (am I correct?) vs MyTeam match was much, much more interesting than anything the current professional matches can offer, because both teams actually brought energy. Because of this sorry state, most people who actually identify themselves with football, only show interest in the European football leagues (though it's a problem as well in the USA and South America, it is barely as bad as here). For most, you're either an EPL guy, or you're not a football guy.
How do we actually fix this? Firstly, better talent searching, and structured training from even secondary school. Seriously, for many talented people, football is only a way to release stress and break a few bones, muscles, and ligaments with purpose. They should be brought to special centers to actually learn football, from the basics to the complex (think Europe and their special youth schools). If that's not possible, do what is done in the States, where football is probably sport no 245.9: organize youth leagues. In these youth leagues, teams with players as young as 7(!) go against each other, in a proper league system with training, coaches, everything. Let's face it: the school training system used now doesn't work. Having a youth league with proper coaches is a possible way to solve the problem, as school teachers are not football coaches. And scrap the 2 session school system. If students of one school can even meet at the same time, how do you train?
Next step: out with the foreigners. Year by year we're hearing foreign player being the stars here in Malaysia. In 5 five years time, I wouldn't be surprized if we have foreign goalkeepers being in the starting 11 of some teams. It's a fact: local players are cheaper to pay, and if you want to see a strong national team, you need to see national players playing. At the top league.
Next step: commercialize. Being a football team nowadays means big business. Treat it like one. What we're seeing at the moment is some sort of extension of an uber-secret CIA-like organization, where money seems to come out of nowhere to pay players. When was the last time you saw someone wear a Perak jersey? How about Man U? Real Madrid? Chelsea? Point done. It doesn't matter if all of those jerseys are fake. If you don't even make some to sell, no one will buy.
And here's the final part of the solution: Ban ESPN & StarSports. If the government wants to help poor ol' RTM, TV3 and NTV7 (do we still have channel 8), they should buy ASTRO and transform it into some specialized keyboard manufacturing company. I can assure you that ever since ASTRO came into our lives we never looked back at Malaysian football. Banning foreign leagues from being shown on out TV's coerces Malaysians to watch only Malaysian football. And what if the people revolt? Send the army. National football is part of national security. Okay, so maybe not.
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