National junior league to kick off

By ERIC SAMUEL

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Education (KPM) in collaboration with the FA of Malaysia (FAM) will start the first national football league for schools. The best school teams from the 14 states will compete in two age groups tournament – the Under-14 and Under-17 leagues.

The Under-14 league for the Minister of Education Cup will include the Bandar Penawar Sports School from Johor while the Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS) will be involved in the KPM-FAM Under-17 youth league.

Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said at the launch of the leagues that they were serious in their bid to develop the game at the grassroots. “We want to provide the junior players an early start to competitive football,” said Hishammuddin. “This national football league for schools would be a continuous effort by the Ministry to bring about a more comprehensive form of competition for the boys.” He said the competition would provide them an avenue to keep tabs on the promising talents who could play at the Asean and Asian schools tournament.

The annual national junior football league for the Under-14 and 17 age groups will kick off next week and will be played over five months from April to August.

Hishammuddin said the FAM would provide the technical support in organising the league by providing referees and other assistance. The schools chosen would field two teams – one for the Under-14 and another for the Under-17 age groups.

The school teams participating are SMK Syed Hassan, Kangar (Perlis), SMK Tunku Anum Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jitra (Kedah). SMK Mutiara Impian, Seberang Prai (Penang), SMK Clifford, K. Kangsar (Perak), SMK Section 11, Shah Alam (Selangor), SMK Seberang Temerloh (Pahang), SMK Datuk Abdullah, Rembau (N. Sembilan), SMK Dato Dol Said, Alor Gajah (Malacca), SMK Tasek Utara (Johor), SMK Putera, K. Baru (Kelantan), SMK Bukit Nenas, Setiu (Terengganu), SMK Keningau II (Sabah), SMK Tabuan Jaya, Kuching (Sarawak), SMK Raja Abdullah, Kepong (K. Lumpur).

FAM general secretary Datuk Azzuddin Ahmad said it was a good move by the KPM to initiate the national football league for schools and the FAM would also be planning along the same line to organise junior leagues for the lower age groups.

100PLUS, the nation’s number one isotonic drink and strong supporter of sports development programmes, has agreed to a sponsorship deal worth almost RM1mil with the Ministry of Education.

Source : The STAR

Comment : This would be better than sending a couple of player overseas or organising competition/tournament which incurred two figures millions Ringgit Malaysia of "rights fees", thats what some of them thought .........

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Scomi Mykids Announces Nation's Top Football Kids

( Date Posted: 18 September 2007 )

Kuala Lumpur, 17 September 2007- Scomi recently wrapped up its search for Malaysia's top football talents aged 12 years and below under the Scomi MyKids programme, which created a lot of hype, renewing interest in football among children.

"The Scomi-MyKids is a unique programme - apart from identifying top football talents, we also created a lot of hype among the primary school children. This is another objective of Scomi-MyKids - to generate renewed interest in football. This resulted in an overwhelming turnout, which was beyond our expectations," said En Shah Hakim Zain, Scomi Group CEO.

Through a series of football trials held at various locations in Malaysia, Scomi-MyKids has identified nine of the best young players for a trip to Manchester, UK from 30th September to 6th October 2007 for a football experience of a lifetime.

In total, over two thousand children turned up for the trials - some as young as six-years. The trials involved a series of tests for speed, skill, strategy and endurance.

Among the exciting highlights for this trip is that these kids will be taken for a tour around Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium as well as watch one of Manchester United's matches live.

"Scomi-MyKids is about grassroot football development and providing the platform to enable young sporting talents to realise their potential in this sport. These young talents are the future of Malaysian football. And Scomi hopes that one day, they will realise the country's potential to excel in football," according to En Shah.

p.s : Future of Malaysian football ....?

Deputy Premier of Malaysia Visits Asia Football Confederation ( AFC )

KUALA LUMPUR: AFC President Mohamed bin Hammam welcomed YAB Dato’ Seri Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, and YB Dato’ Seri Azalina binti Othman Said, Minister of Youth and Sports, to AFC House for their first visit to the headquarters of the Asian Football Confederation.

The visit marked the development of closer relations between Asia’s football government body and the Malaysian Government.

Following a warm welcome, AFC officials took the opportunity to present AFC’s development programmes including ‘Vision Asia’, the Grassroots & Youth Programme, and the AFC Professional Leagues project.

The Vision Asia presentation gave an overview of the project focusing on football association governance, marketing, competitions, clubs and overall stakeholder management. The Grassroots & Youth briefing focused on the necessary areas of development, and the systematic programme which AFC is implementing as part of Vision Asia.

The final presentation on the professionalisation of leagues and clubs in Asia outlined the criteria for countries to follow when re-launching their national leagues, including governance, facilities, community relationships, professionalism, marketing and media.

The Deputy Prime Minister and the AFC President agreed on the powerful role of football, as not only a sports concept, but also a tool to improve society and benefit communities.

Commenting following the meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister said, “I was very impressed with the programme. I have always emphasised on development. In Malaysia, we have the people, the enthusiasm and the resources, but we do not have the guidance, facilities, professional coaching and career path.”

Bin Hammam invited Malaysia to join the Vision Asia programme, as ‘Vision Malaysia’. YAB Dato’ Seri Najib confirmed that this proposal will be taken to the next cabinet meeting on sports for further discussion. “We will look for a way to join hands with AFC,” he stated.

WE WILL SEE WHAT PROGRAMMES WILL TAKE PLACE AND HOW IT WILL EFFECT MALAYSIAN FOOTBALL AS A WHOLE .....................................

NEWS 1

Malaysian rookie goalkeeper Syed Adney Syed Hussein (pic) is game for the big time.

The lanky Selangor custodian, who will turn 21 in November, has set his sights on playing in the English Premier League. He will get his first big break when he attends trials with Middlesbrough sometime in August.

NEWS 2

PSV Eindhoven, who have one of the best youth development programmes in the world, have offered Mohd Asraruddin Putra Omar a two-week training stint with the possibility of the defender joining the club’s youth programme.

"We saw player No 3 (Asraruddin) play against us and the match before and we came away impressed," said PSV coach Peter Dekkers."We would like to take him to PSV for a few weeks and see more of him in action. "We have spoken to Jonathan Price (chairman of the Gifted Group) to assist us in getting the player to PSV as soon as possible."

Asraruddin, a leftback in the Under-19 squad in the CYC, is the team’s vice-skipper and took over the captain’s armband from the injured Bunyamin Omar in the match against PSV.

In the absence of Bunyamin for the PSV game, Asraruddin moved into the centreback position and handled himself superbly.In fact, the Kedah-born player is capable of playing in either the leftback or centreback positions. A former student at the Bukit Jalil Sports School, Asraruddin played a crucial role in helping Malaysia qualify for the AFC Under-20 Championship for the first time in over 20 years.

MALAYSIA ARE NOT SHORT OF TALENTS AFTER ALL !!

Matter of pride - Article from STAR

Found this article in The STAR dated sometime in July. He sure got some points there........


Matter of pride

Malaysia played to form and did not disappoint critics that labeled the national team as certified cannon fodder. The apathy that has ruined our game and the growth of football in the other Asian Cup co-hosting nations says it all.

By NANTHA KUMAR

ANY DISCOURSE on Malaysian football will involve the trading of every conceivable limping joke – “running” does not apply here for obvious reasons – stocked up for at least the last 10 years. The most petrifying aspect of it all is that the gags have blurred into facts.

The solitary hope of seeing Malaysia in a major international tournament rests with the nation's eagerness and ability to host it – as is the case with the AFC Asian Cup 2007 – and it is a reality that the only professional football here is of that beamed in from European football leagues.

The President of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has claimed that he had brought in millions in funding during his nearly 30-year reign but omitted to mention that his presidency eerily coincided with the decline of Malaysian football. The President's assertion, however, neatly summed up the narrow mentality and cultural bankruptcy that pervades Malaysian sports – it is all and always about the money. Allied to our unique bodoh sombong psyche – clueless but yet contemptuous – that is embedded in almost every layer of Malaysian life, it makes for a destructive union.

In short, our football mirrors our values. Sloganeering and posturing are above substance and purpose and it would be pointless to demand our footballers to invest their heart and soul into their play – as they belatedly did in the defeat to Iran – when there is no danger of them leaving the comfort zone that they occupy. When our players cruise into the training ground in their swanky cars and pontificate presumptuously of playing in Europe – as one of them ludicrously declared before the Asian Cup – the self-perpetuated notion that they have “arrived” would not be out of place.

This is the truth: none of the current batch of players in the national team would hack it in the national leagues of Vietnam,

Indonesia or Thailand. It is not that we are bereft of talented players or coaches: 20-year-old Titus James Palani has been in France since he was 12 to pursue his ambition of becoming an outstanding professional while former international Lim Teong Kim is scheduled to return home as one of the two coaches of Bayern Munich's Under-19 side which will compete in the Champions Youth Cup next month.

Both individuals have prospered not because of but in spite of the festering football environment here. This is a nation in which the duty of talent spotting has been abdicated to reality television episodes and when a team consisting of amateurs sourced from the programme and merged with semi-professionals are good enough to compete in the Malaysian league, what does it say about our football?

This is not to knock the popular television show – which is projected to roll out a similar version in Indonesia – but that is another way of looking at the football quagmire and ask: how serious are we about the development of football?

Not as much as our Asian Cup co-hosts. Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have a larger pool of footballers to select from by virtue of the size of their population. All three nations share comparable physical, economic, social and cultural characteristics with Malaysia and have lagged – with the exception of Indonesia – behind us three decades ago.

Unlike Malaysia, however, all three do not have the range of facilities and funding available here where, unfortunately, international standards are confined to structures and not players.

Vietnam are the model after which Malaysia should emulate. The spirited manner in which they shocked holders Japan into conceding a goal before succumbing to the inevitable defeat was an example of the benefits of sustained growth in football and faith. While their team, comprising U-23 players are deficient in tactical maturity (an asset that will be gained after a number of years) – they do not fall short of aggression and self-belief. Beneath this observation is a concerted effort by the Vietnam football authorities and government to embrace the modern game that had left them behind during and after the Vietnam War.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC)'s Vision Vietnam project and FIFA's Goal Project – both personally supervised by AFC President Mohamed bin Hammam – has connected experts in coaching, medicine, football administration and match officialdom plus marketing with the Vietnam Football Federation. The rewards are there to be seen: Vietnam participated in the AFC Under-20 Championship 2006 – beating Malaysia in their group – and are the only South East Asian nation in next month's final qualifying rounds for the Beijing Olympics 2008.

Indonesia are also beneficiaries of the Vision Asia scheme. A year ago, the AFC – on the advice and assistance of the Football Association of Indonesia – identified Bandung and Yogjakarta as the centres that will foster an improved batch of footballers to eventually succeed the proud heroes of Asian Cup 2007. In the last tournament, Indonesia finished third in a group that also featured finalists China and semi-finalists Bahrain. Three years ago, Indonesia were thumped 3-1 by Bahrain; this year, it their turn to repay in kind with a 2-1 win in the Group D opener.

Thailand shares the same problems as their co-hosts. Dwindling interest in the domestic game, disorganisation and distrust of the football league and the low fortunes of the national team have all merged to create a diversion to televised European club competitions. The wild fame of the Premier League suggests that the interest in the game lies dormant and the Football Association of Thailand are earnest in building on a spate of commendable performances of the national team.

Thailand were the runners-up in the Asean Football Championship 2007 (previously known as the Tiger Cup), they made it to the last eight of the Doha Asian Games 2006 and have been the SEA Games gold medalists since 1993 in a remarkable seven-year dominance.

The establishment of the National Football Training Centre last year – with the help of football's world governing body FIFA – is also a positive step in further growing the sports and providing an avenue for youngsters and coaches to be urbanised.

It is no longer smart or relevant to knock the FAM – the President's missionary zeal to stubbornly stay on and battle gallantly to raise domestic standards is not exactly laudable.

But when his first act is to convene a task force consisting individuals who are not blessed with robust clear-sightedness and a glimmer reflective self-righteousness, it strains the limit of the laughable. We should leave the FAM to their own devise, with this single request: please extend the inquest to about a month from now to cover another debacle-in-waiting – the Merdeka Tournament.


Copyright © 1995-2007 Star Publications (Malaysia)

By the way : where is TITUS JAMES PALANI now ???

Rajagopal: U-20 boys not likely to repeat AFF feat ( News From The STAR )

This excerpt are from THE STAR

"By ERIC SAMUEL



PETALING JAYA: Malaysia will be hard pressed to get a podium finish in the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Under-20 championship in Vietnam from Aug 1-14.

Coach K. Rajagopal said it would be tough for his young charges with an average age of 18 to repeat the same feat when they finished runners-up to Myanmar in Palembang, Indonesia two years ago.

“It is a different set of players altogether and we cannot expect the same kind of results,” said a concerned Rajagopal yesterday.

He said the present team lacked international exposure. There are only a handful of experienced hands left in the squad led by midfielder's K. Gurusamy, Abdul Shukur Yusuf and striker Ahmad Fakri Saarani.

“These boys have not been playing international matches on a regular basis. We have to be realistic on that aspect even though personally the team have a lot of potential,” said Rajagopal of the team, which only featured at the Hassanal Bolkiah Tournament in Bandar Seri Begawan in February.

However, Rajagopal will be counting on the experience of the trio to provide guidance for the other players. The three had been regulars under Rajagopal and had also featured in his plans in last year’s AFC Under-20 Championship in India.

Malaysia have been drawn in Group A with Singapore, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei while the teams in Group B are Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

“Despite of what has been said about Malaysian football of late, our hope is still on the young ones. They are still eager to play for Malaysia and we should not destroy their hopes and dreams,” added Rajagopal, whose team will open their campaign against Singapore on Aug 1. "


Are'nt We Have To Be Positive and Confident at least For The Boys ?

MyKids football trials - Qualify for a trip to Manchester, UK

Malaysian with kids, below 12, interested in football go to MyKids football trials - Qualify for a trip to Manchester, UK . Start early for better Malaysian Football...