Let's play ball!

It was held to a one-all draw by one-time giants Selangor after full and extra-time at its home turf in Larkin, Johor in the battle for the Malaysian version of the English league’s Charity Shield. The deadlock was broken with the activation of the penalty decider which JDT won seven kicks to Selangor’s six conversions.

The other plum tie was the game in Perak which pitted the Power of Pink against the State that tin built – Perak.

Sitting in the visitors’ team’s bench in the stadium playing pitch was the immaculately dolled up figure of Kelantan team patron Datuk Seri Hasmiza Othman. If you don’t already know, she is the self-styled cosmetic and healthy-living guru we have come to know simply as Dr Vida.

She stood out in her pink top and the constant flashing of her toothy grin showing the trademark index-middle finger salute. That, all the while mouthing some irritatingly familiar sales-turned-terrace chant. The precise words for which I shall not repeat here, thank you very much!

THE POWER OF MONEY

Just imagine, for RM30 million or thereabouts, she gets to swamp our weekend football viewing on television for the entire season.

But who’s to blame her. The US NFL season just concluded with the Superbowl 50 battle won by the Denver Broncos. A 30-second commercial during the 4-hour long live game telecast on US televisiob cost each advertiser a cool US$5 million!

Interestingly; after the Perak-Kelantan game, Dr Vida – whose football knowledge must surely be rather rudimentary at best, pronounced that she was satisfied with the resultant draw. She praised the team for the effort. On the other hand, the team boss – politician Tan Sri Annuar Musa who we must assume as being a lot more informed; was a little less glowing in his post-match remarks.

Despite the good attendances over the opening weekend and `wall-to-wall’ media coverage; the game is still some way off from reaching the expected heights. Neither are the state of the team’s finances in robust order.

Why – at least three teams owe back wages to a number of their players; long after some of them have already kicked their last ball in anger at those clubs and plying their trade elsewhere!

The modern game the world over, is dominated by rich `sugar daddies’ (and in the case of Kelantan, Cik Mek Molek). In the past, the English teams were the playthings of upper class steel magnates whose position was usurped by latter-day American robber barons. They were then eclipsed by Russian oligarchs and when these neophytes lost their heads, Arabian interlopers. Now? We are swamped by the voracious appetite of China's Yuan; as with almost everything else.

The `fever’ is contagious and our local scene is not immune to such football patronage.

JDT is bankrolled to the tune of RM100 million by State royalty. There is no doubt whose hands are at the tiller. Kelantan is so tied up with Dr Vida that the team’s name is now a mouthful – so unwieldy it has become that media only refers to it by the initials PQPTRW – go figure!

Muscling in with money does not mean one can exert one’s wishes without incurring the wrath of diehard supporters. The Lerners and the Henrys of the BPL’s Aston Villa and Liverpool respectively will readily attest.

Ownership is not plain sailing as these American investor-owners are learning to their cost. Randy Lerner may be a billionaire from across the pond but his miserly treatment of the club on the transfer front has seen Villa rooted at the bottom of the BPL table. The 6-nil thrashing at the hands of Liverpool at the weekend will only serve to hasten his sure-to-follow banishment.

But what of Villa’s conqueror’s Liverpool? Its owners were given a lesson not to incur the ire of the diehard Kops. To pay for building a new stand, they raised ticket prices from 59 Pounds to 77 Pounds. So in the last home game before the Villa victory, some 10,000 fans got up at the 77th minute and walked out of Anfield, Liverpool’s hallowed home turf. This distraction on the terraces was enough to make Liverpool concede two goals in the last nine minutes, thus drawing the game 2-all against Sunderland which they would otherwise have won.

Against this backdrop, confirmation came that ASTRO had won the right to broadcast BPL matches for another 3 years. This more than made up for the rights to broadcast Malaysian soccer that was awarded to its rival.

It is not for nothing that football has been described by its most romantic proponents – the Brazilians; as `o jogo bonito’ – the beautiful game.

If you want to reminisce about the good old days of Malaysian football and how it brought the diverse races together, go the cinemas and catch Ola Bola now before its box-office run ends.