IMPORT AT YOUR PERIL

DOUBLE eight to the Chinese is as good as it gets. Perhaps, to Malaysia’s football coach K Rajagobal and a few others before him, 88 is as cursed a number can get. It is the section in the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) constitution given the stern legalese Article 88. It serves as a gag on everyone save for the chosen few from speaking their minds. Actually, it serves as a bar that prevents anyone from saying anything or doing something that smacks of criticism. A gag order is censorship, outright, pure and simple. For what good purpose, and for what reason; you might ask?

At a time when the whole world is agog over the wondrous achievements of that rocket of a pocket, dynamite in boots and fleet-of-foot in the dribble that is the magic of Lionel Messi, we here remain trapped within the restricted confines of our cordoned football fields and within the constricting hold even smaller minds. Messi has just scored in 19 successive Spanish Primera Liga matches without fail and fans continue to speculate what records he will break next.

Contrast that celebration of success with Rajagobal’s travails which began when he responded to a journalist’s query as to why Malaysian footlball did not have its own Messi. This came after yet another disastrous outing when the national team – lustily given the brave tag of Harimau (Tiger) - losing to some opponent or other. OK, not just any opponent but Saudi Arabia, which is up there with the big boys having once went all the way to the World Cup if I am not mistaken; to whom we got thrashed 4-1 in an Asian zone qualifier or some tournament or other.

Put on the spot, Raja the man switched on his tactical mind and turned off his political brain. Innocently he identified the dearth of super Malaysian strikers on the presence of imports. Having the ban on the use of imported players lifted beginning last season, most of the big-spending teams bought, mostly huge black men who can bulldoze their way through puny Malaysian defences and score goals galore. These are players of prodigious strengths enhanced by impossibly balletic grace while running in their size 11 feet with the ball stuck to their boots as if held with U-Hu, the glue!

Week in, week out, we see them performing at the highest levels in the top echelons of world football – either in the British Premier League, the Spanish Primera Liga or the German Bundesliga. They are seen banging in the goals against hapless defences marshaled by weak white men (I say this without an ounce of racist bear-baiting or xenophobia in the thick red blood coursing through my veins).

Locally, their exploits are translated to conquests away from the football field too. Quite a few among our adventurous maiden have fallen for their indomitable charms, filling in where the prowess of the local badang are at times found wanting, however fortified they are with tonnes of tongkat ali.

“Deper ayat power,” is the cooey refrain heard when local reporters from the Bacaria school of journalism come-a-calling. For the benefit of my colleague Aditya Aimar, that response can quite accurately if liberally translated as; “Their glib speech beats foreplay.”

Back to the ball…at their feet.

Their performance on the field is simply a reflection of the shift in power from the playing fields of Eton to the wide expanse of the African bald pitches. Stars of the caliber of Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast), Michael Essien (Ghana) and Roger Milla (Cameroon) not only can dance with the ball, they run rings round their more fancied western opponents, dumping them on their wan posterior while making a cheeky passing move.

Let’s see how they fared with our local teams that chose foreign – the very bane of Rajagobal’s existence now.

The most prolific player who both male and female fans swoon each time he makes an appearance on the football stage has to be Marlon Alex James. He is the epitome of the Carribean King – tall, very tanned and superbly talented; with the ball. Towering well over six foot (that’s 1.87 m to those in the metric school of measurement), the man who hails from the Caribbean Island of St Vincent and the Grenadines gets in the goals for his team, Armed Forces.

Johor chose to go Latin instead, paying plenty of liras to attract Italian Simone Del Nero and a plateful of pesetas for the services of Dani Guiza. The true mercenaries that they are, word is that they’ll soon leave their Johor teams at the next available exit in the transfer time-table for a variety of professional and personal reasons.

Selangor meanwhile, shot themselves in the proverbial foot. They got themselves in a dizzy tangle signing Ramez Dayoub, a Lebanese player who it turned out, had a dubious history of being banned in his native land. His offence? Apparently he once sold a match!

Selangor, so professional in the past dropped the ball completely on this one. We still remember the team affectionately called the Red Giants by their legion of adoring fans when they had foreigners of the caliber of Karel Stromsik from the then Czechoslovakia.

One of their most successful outfield imports was former Everton, West Ham and England player Tony Cottee who plied his trade in the mid-1990s. On the field he did the job like a true professional, scoring a hatful of goals and winning trophies like no other before him or since, could.

Off it, he spoke his mind. Memorably, he commented about the true state of Malaysian football then, famously letting on that were he a French pig, he needn’t use his porky nose to sniff out the truffles on the playing pitch. Yes, football’s administrators were so incompetent then that some playing surfaces resembled ploughed fields, rather than billiard smooth green baize that you see on television whenever top teams in Europe play on television.

While we are on the subject of foreigners (race), many football fans have raised the touchy issue surrounding the dearth of Chinese players involved in local football in a playing capacity. Who was the last Chinese player to wear the national colours?

You would have to go a long way to look out for the names of Lee Kin Hong, Yap Kam Choon, Tan Siew Seng, Lim Teong Kim and Chow Siew Wai to name just a few. These were the stalwarts in the team whose commanding presence lent steel to the back line or midfield.

But I digress. Back to the Rajagobal and the number pat pat (88 in Cantonese). Come off it everybody. Do you see our schools with proper school fields to begin with? Do you see a proper youth development programme to rival the club system in developed soccer nations. To be sure, some efforts are being made in this direction. But be patient la! Success does not come overnight.

RAZAK CHIK hopes this country’s best football export, Titus James Palani will become the first Malaysian to play for a top tier European team soon. Go Titus go….