Thursday, August 04, 2016

The KJ- FAM Meeting, the real story

The entire FAM executive council are expected to step down to pave way for fresh elections to be held.

Although the current term of the Exco will only ends in 2018 , it is expected they will step down together with FAM President Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah.

This is expected to happen at the Exco meeting to be held on August 15.

It is learnt that this was one of the proposals put forward by Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin when he met the FAM Exco in a briefing of his formula to solve the impasse affecting Malaysian Football of late.

In reality this is nothing new as the FAM Exco had discussed this possibility ( with regards to bringing forward) the elections as a sign of solidarity with the outgoing President and collective responsibility.

The FAM constitution requires 90 days notice for the Congress to be called and with a meeting already scheduled for September 15, FAM could well decide to delay it until December this year and allow the Exco to get a new mandate.

Also discussed at the meeting with Khairy was the role Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim could play in FAM with proposals for him to take over FAM as President or as Manager of the national team.

However this will be further deliberated at the August 15 meeting and with AFF Cup in November, any change with regards to the coaching structure will not be easy to execute as there are contracts involved.

But there will also be a question about coach Dato Ong Kim Swee as his training methods have come under scrutiny. Although Kim Swee has already provided video and other evidence to refute Khairy's public rebuke on high intensity training, the Minister has opted to keep mum on this matter despite a report from his very own National Sports Institute.

It has been made clear that a foreign coach will do better and having said that Kim Swee can start packing together with the Exco.

Also discussed was the offer by the Ministry to lend a helping hand on youth development but it is further learnt that it revolves around the NFDP virtually taking over that role from FAM.

So with no national team to manage, no youth development and with the domestic competitions being handled by FMLLP, the question is does it spell the end of FAM? Will it only be there structurally as a building, without anything to call its own?