Producing the best players

19 April, 2014


WHILE the world was remembering the Hillsborough tragedy exactly 25 years ago in the United Kingdom, football fans at Perak Stadium were rampaging and causing mayhem. It is a chilling reminder that all is not well on the football front in this country.

Hooliganism is rearing its ugly head. This year alone, there have been eight cases of football-related violence in the country, not including the Larkin tunnel incident which no one seemed to have a clear picture of what actually happened. If nothing is done, things will get worse from now on.

It is ironic that it happened about the same time as the launch of the Pelan Pembangunan Bola Sepak Negara Fasa 1: 2014-2020 (National Football Development Programme or NFDP) by the prime minister in Pahang. The incident hopefully has not put a damper on the ever bullish and spirited Minister of Youth and Sports, Khairy Jamaluddin.

NFDP is ambitious but doable. It is realistic and pragmatic. The plan is not plucked out of thin air to begin with. But we have every reason to be cautiously optimistic. Like any good "Malaysian plan", it can be badly executed and mired in a bureaucratic mess.

We have heard about football development plans before, yet we are in a perpetual state of decline since many decades ago. We have not qualified for the World Cup for some time and are currently at number 154 in the Fifa ranking, below most poor Third World countries or many nations at war.

We are worse off than Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand. Many have given up hope. In terms of management, we are merely perfecting the art of muddling through.

FAM has largely been blamed for the state of affair, perhaps rightly so.

Let's start with the positives. Football has a massive following in this country. Fans are following not just those glamorous European league matches shown on TV, but local ones too. The fact that fans are rioting in Ipoh speaks volumes of the passion in the game.

We have seen how fans are queuing by the thousands to get tickets. In some games, stadiums are full to the brim. But how do we channel that interest to the betterment of the game? How do we take advantage of the "people's game" to ensure we have world class players and teams in the future?

There is a lot of money in football. Wayne Rooney, under his current contract at Manchester United (MU), earns more than RM1.2 million a week. And he is not even the most expensive player in the world.

Billions of fans are willing to pay to watch various league games, the UEFA Cup and the World Cup. Football clubs are owned by huge conglomerates.

More importantly, poor African nations are sending their best players to European leagues. They are their best exports.

For NFDP to succeed, it has to ensure that the right ecosystem is in place. The idea about the DNA for football could only be within reach if there is commitment from the Education Ministry (MOE).

The schools are already burdened by exam-based assessment, which according to its detractors, is almost killing any initiative for creativity and extra-curricular activities.

NFDP's critical element is to start them young, as young as seven years old. That involves a sea change in attitude not only at MOE but among parents as well. The endgame is important. Where would these kids be, after being trained at various facilities as planned by NFDP?

Let's look at NFDP as the way forward. NFDP needs help from all "stakeholders", we the people, especially. Perhaps it is the only option that we have for now.

We need to bring back the best in football. We need to replicate many more players in the mould of Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Aun and Santokh Singh. We want winners. We must be able to compete with the best and be the best. But we must nurture the talents first.

According to the booklet on NFDP, there are 9,930 registered players and perhaps slightly more than half a million "players" in the country. Among football superpowers, the numbers are many more than that.

Spain has 2.8 million players to chose from, Germany has 16.3 million and England has 4.1 million. We need to chose the creme de la creme. With the right strategy, football academies and sports schools will hopefully provide that.

Let's give NFDP a chance.

Original source - www2.nst.com.my