Sunday, June 08, 2025
Sorry, Malaysia
In an era when we are inundated with stats, many meaningless to the mere fan, for me only two matter. One is the score. What is the point of having 20 shots and 63% possession when you lose 1-0? And the other is the attendance. If they are accurate, crowd figures cut through any media hype and tell us the real state of the game and not how clubs, officials and pundits view things.
Picking the purely random season of 2015, the average crowd figure in the Malaysia Super League according to Wikipedia was 9,280. Champions Johor Darul Ta'zim, then a relatively new club, were pulling in just shy of 17,000 each home game. Kelantan, Pahang and Perak were just under 10,000 and Selangor a shade below 9,000.
Fast forward 10 years and much has changed in the Malaysian football landscape. The season for starters is now spread over two years like most in Europe.
The 2024/25 season wasn't good for Malaysian football. JDT claimed their 11th consecutive title and their third consecutive domestic treble. Good for JDT of course but compared to 2015, now their home crowds had dropped to an average 14,095. Only runners-up Selangor finished with an average over 5,000. The average league attendance only 3,725. And not just the league. Even the venerable Malaysia Cup, one of the oldest competitions in South East Asian football, seems to be losing its sheen with just 55,000+ turning up for a final which in normal years would be 80,000+.
The season was not only dominated by JDT on the pitch. Off it tales of unpaid salaries at a number of clubs dominated headlines. Towards the end of the season came rumours some big names won't even bother joining the league next season including Kedah who were, 20 years ago, the dominant force in Malaysia. Joining the league will be the newly promoted Immigration FC, another government department, who were promoted and DPMM - yep, that DPMM from Brunei who decided they were no longer interested in the Singapore league and moved north of the Causeway.
So, in a league where fans are patently losing interest, clubs, well maybe some of them, feel that more foreign players are needed. In fact, not just the clubs. The FAM have been actively scouting the world looking for anyone who may or may not have a Malaysian granny and giving them a Malaysian passport in the hope of improving the Harimau Malaya fortunes.
With less Malaysian players needed for the Malaysian national team, does it matter if traditional Malaysian clubs are giving up? And what message does it send to ambitious local players when they see so many foreigners parachuted in ahead of them?
How come Malaysian football has sunk so low on so many levels? The answer of course is JDT. While many clubs can't afford to pay their players, JDT are rolling in cash - they even have branded barber shops! Their facilities are nothing short of superb. They have invested heavily in the infrastructure any successful football club needs like training facilities, medical facilities and of course a place to get that beard trimmed.
In short, backed by the deep pockets of local royalty, JDT look like and smell like a proper football club. Unfortunately, no other club has even bothered trying to compete at their level. Yes, Pahang had their moments, Selangor have tradition on their side, but no one has consistently tried to go toe to toe with the side from the south who are unbeaten in their last three seasons!
What I have always found interesting in Malaysia is while government departments have no problem spending taxpayers' money on pointless little football clubs, wealthy businessmen show no such enthusiasm. Yes, some are happy to invest in clubs overseas, but no one seems to be willing to provide their cash and expertise locally.
Is there a Datuk in shining armour willing to come along and invest the millions needed to make Kuala Lumpur City a force the capital city can be proud of? Surely, Kelantan deserves better than an owner selling skin cream? And Selangor, perhaps the biggest sleeping giant in the region with legions of supporters waiting for their club to become relevant again.
Malaysian football north of Johor is dying and no newly promoted team of passport stampers or foreigners for hire in the national team is going to change that any time soon.