FAM criticized for U.17 Malaysia's painful loss to Vietnam, illegal naturalization scandal gets worse

Malaysian sports critic Zulakbal Abdul Karim said on December 2 that the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) must accept responsibility for repeated failures and start fixing the country's football.

His statement was made after the Malaysian U17 team failed to qualify for the U17 Asian Cup for the second consecutive time, marking the team’s failure to qualify for the tournament. This defeat has made the football atmosphere in this country even more gloomy as the document fraud scandal of naturalized players still casts a shadow.

FAM is facing the biggest problem in the history of football in this country.

PHOTO: REUTERS

In the final match of Group C, U.17 Malaysia suffered a heavy 0-4 defeat to host Vietnam, ending the qualifying round in second place (12 points), behind Vietnam (15 points). Malaysia last participated in the AFC U.17 finals in 2023, and their best achievement was reaching the quarterfinals in 2014 under coach S. Balachandran.

“Failure is repeated because nothing changes”

Dr Zulakbal said FAM had failed to show urgency in addressing the long-standing issues and continued to “fall into the same old rut”. He commented: “The Asian Cup is the gateway to the World Cup, but Malaysian youth football has been failing for generations.”

“Coach Balachandran’s team was the best we had, but even they failed to qualify for the Under-17 World Cup. We failed at every youth level, and yet no adjustments were made. Everyone was sad when the team lost, but it was quickly forgotten,” he said.

U.17 Malaysia (yellow shirt) lost to U.17 Vietnam 4-0

According to him, as long as FAM does not admit its failures, Malaysian football will not be able to move forward.

Tried many ways but could not find a way out

Mr. Zulakbal reiterated that Malaysia has tried many development directions: using domestic and foreign coaches, sending the team to train in Europe, or even hosting the 2018 AFC U-17 Finals. However, all of these have not brought about a clear change as Malaysia continues to miss out on the Youth World Cup.

Mr. Zulakbal Abdul Karim is an experienced football expert in Malaysia.

PHOTO: IGNV

He emphasized: “FAM needs to properly study the reasons for the failure and build a serious plan to qualify for the Asian Youth Finals. We cannot continue to repeat the same mistakes while many countries with more difficult conditions still qualify before us.”

Risk of direct impact on Malaysian national team

The sports critic warned that the string of failures at youth levels showed a serious decline in the pipeline of players to succeed the Malaysian national team. He also stressed the need for urgent action by the FAM Technical Committee, especially as the National Football Development Programme (NFDP) is expected to be transferred under FAM.

“When we cannot produce players of sufficient quality for the Youth World Cup, how can we expect the national team to reach the World Cup? We have failed from the very beginning, and that has lasted for many years,” he said.

Mr. Zulakbal also pointed out that Malaysia had to consider naturalizing players as proof that they could not train enough young football talents to serve the national teams.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/fam-bi-chi-trich-vi-u17-malaysia-thua-dau-viet-nam-be-boi-nhap-tich-lau-cang-toi-te-185251202190002126.htm