Question mark on 2017 future of The Red Giants, The Red Warriors

THE international football website Soccernet published an article earlier this week outlining 5 wishes for Malaysian football. No 4 was for Malaysian clubs to outline their structured financial security.

Funding problems. We've seen it all before haven't we? Mismanagement of funds, players not getting paid, sponsorship deals not working out the way they're supposed to... What's currently happening in Malaysian club football is nothing new.

But let's not simplify things and say that this is an "Only in Malaysia" occurrence. We’ve seen what has happened to teams in competitive leagues elsewhere thanks to mismanagement, in England (Leeds United, Portsmouth, to name a few), Italy (Parma) and so on. Not everyone is capable of managing a football club professionally, unfortuna

The two Malaysian teams in the spotlight right now are Selangor and Kelantan, which were both highlighted in the article. Two prominent teams in their own right currently in the Malaysia Super League, facing a possibly disastrous start to 2017.

Selangor are in this unusual situation of the executive committee being in a standoff with their president, who happens to be the Selangor Menteri Besar Dato' Azmin Ali. Yesterday, there was a protest held outside the Selangor FA headquarters in Kelana Jaya demanding that the exco resign due to poor management of the club.

The president wants the Selangor FA to go the full privatisation route as part of an overall revamp, while the executive committee are not keen on doing so. Back in August, the president attempted to remove the secretary general and treasurer as part of the revamp, which resulted in a protest by many other exco members, leading them to walk out of the following exco meeting. led by the vice-president Dato’ Seri Subahan Kamal. Now, the exco claims that they've held meetings without their president, who has snubbed the meetings. Whatever the case, the conflict has affected the team to the extent that some players have already left to join other teams due to the uncertain future.

The exco released a statement that they will not give in to the protests demanding their resignation, and that the protests do not represent the feelings of the majority of the fans, insisting that work goes on as normal. I'm assuming they have a solid plan with regards to funding, and not just pleading to their president to get money from the state. Anyone know what their plan is?

Anyone?

Some of these exco members have been there for decades, but do they truly deserve to still be there, given all the problems the Red Giants are currently facing?

Having said that, the situation with Kelantan is quite unique as well, thanks to their on-again, off-again celebrity sponsor. Her latest announcement earlier this month was yet another amazing statement. There is no harm in claiming that continuing sponsorship may be an issue due to business reasons, but demanding that Kelantan fans need to buy her products more in order for her to continue sponsoring the Kelantan football team is such an outrageous demand it beggars belief.

It's probably not really fair to do a comparison but can you imagine if Yokohama told Chelsea fans that "if you want us to continue providing sponsorship for your club, you need to buy more of our tyres"? Or Standard Chartered telling Liverpool fans they need to do their banking with them instead of their competitors?

While her funding has no doubt helped the Kelantan team in many ways for 2016, the unnecessary controversies may have left KAFA in a downright mess, with her belief that funding the team gives her the right to do pretty much anything she right pleases, at least where the Kelantan football team is concerned.

The Kelantan FA will be having an EGM today, and no doubt sponsorship will be the core issue discussed. Earlier this month, Red One have voiced their desire to sponsor the team. A proper corporate sponsor would certainly help stabilise the short-term future of the club at least, with proper controls and proper understanding of the role of a sponsor.

While JDT are clearly fortunate to have a strong royal benefactor behind them, what's more important is the professionalism of the club, shown in basic matters such as on-time salary payments, and a proper administrative structure which helps to set up for a strong long-term future.

At the end of the day, it's very annoying to see football associations threaten to pull out of the competition due to insufficient funding. Shouldn't they be working hard at sponsorship continuously, instead of waiting till the end of the season to do it? Such timing smacks of simple laziness, hoping that sponsors will step up by themselves instead of working all year round to ensure that funding is sufficient.

The 2017 deadline to register teams by the first week of January 2017 looms. One can only hope that professionalism at clubs will come through eventually, with capable officials turning up in club management instead of individuals jockeying for managerial positions simply to hog the limelight in pursuit of an undeserved fat paycheck and misguided fame.