Wednesday, May 14, 2008

TIME FOR CHANGE in THE M-LEAGUE

There has been calls to revamp the current competition structure of the M-League from several quarters. The proposal below is a personal opinion and not reflective of the organisation I work for. Currently the structure of the M-League is as follows:

Super League – 13 teams
Premier League – 13 teams
FA Cup – 30 teams
Malaysia Cup - 18
President’s Cup – 25 teams
Youth Cup – 25 teams
FAM Cup – 8 teams

The odd number poses problems to fixtures and the clubs face problems in preparing teams for the Presidents and Youth Cup due to budget constraints. On the top of that we have to accept the fact that the M-League is more state based as the clubs have problems attracting the fans despite having some quality players in their ranks. Another issue is that by having such a structure, it gives little or no time at all for the national teams to train thus severely affecting our prospects at the international level. Hence a new structure is proposed to overcome this situation and the wisdom of the football fraternity is needed to further discuss the proposal and amend the format of the M-League accordingly if the principle argument is accepted.