Chasing glory, floored by debt: Are Malaysia football clubs scoring own goals with poor management?

CNA

11-06-2025

KUALA LUMPUR: A sign that not all was well at Perak Football Club surfaced in the middle of last year, when players were told their salaries would be halved.
For centre back Shivan Pillay, this meant having to be more frugal, and he started cooking and eating more at home.
'Many of the players were doing this as there were monthly commitments such as paying for rental and our car loans,' said the 25-year-old, a former Malaysia national Under-23 player.
The staff were also getting their salaries late but, in a team meeting last September, Perak FC's management assured all outstanding payments would be made.
The situation deteriorated rapidly just before Hari Raya Puasa in end-March, however, when players stopped getting paid altogether.
In April, news that the club could dissolve emerged after goalkeeper Haziq Nadzli shared on social media that the management had offered players just 20 per cent of 6.5 months' salary arrears.
On May 25, Perak FC announced that it would immediately cease all operations as it had exhausted its resources.
The management said it had invested over RM40 million (US$9.45 million) over three years and 2.5 seasons. It had begun by clearing RM8 million in debt left by the previous management and had allocated RM10 million annually to running the club – the operations and wages of its teams, coaches and administrative staff.
Remaining funds would be used to send its foreign players home and pay whatever it could to other staff and players, it said.
"If they had told us (they were facing difficulties), we could have tried to look for another team and make a move during the transfer window in December last year," said Shivan.
Perak FC is not the only club that will be missing from the Malaysia Super League (MSL) when the new season begins in August. Kedah Darul Aman (KDA) FC, too, failed to get a national licence to compete in the coming season, which will end in May 2026, due to financial compliance issues.
Their woes have cast the spotlight on issues such as overspending, unsustainable revenue models and lax governance that plague Malaysian club football.
Although football is the national sport of Malaysia, its local iteration has suffered from poor management, a lack of corporate sponsorship, a widening gap between teams in the league and a relative lack of support from local fans, some of whom pour their passion into English Premier League clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United, observers said.
Proper management and a rethink of funding models – such as whether state funding is needed – as well as certain policies, such as the number of foreign players allowed, are needed to lift standards and professionalism in the league, they said.
SALARIES UNPAID
Perak and Kedah are not the only clubs facing financial and other woes.
Three teams – Kuala Lumpur FC, Kelantan Darul Naim FC and PDRM FC – have been issued conditional licences for the coming season and were required to submit additional information to fulfil the financial criteria set by the Malaysian Football League (MFL).
Failure to comply may result in their licences being revoked, said the MFL.
Clubs need to comply with criteria in six areas, namely sporting, infrastructure, personnel and administration, legal, financial and business.
MFL acting chief executive Shazli Shaik told CNA it has yet to make a final decision on the three clubs.
Clubs facing cash flow problems feature regularly in the news.
In January, almost half of KDA FC's players reportedly boycotted training after they did not receive their salaries.
Players from Kuala Lumpur City FC – which won the Malaysia Cup in 2021 by defeating Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) – have complained about unpaid salaries over the past year.
At Sri Pahang – which is coached by Singapore football legend Fandi Ahmad – payment of salaries has also been an issue in the past season, with players only receiving their salaries in March this year, just before the Malaysia Cup final where they lost 1-2 to JDT.
While Sri Pahang has received a licence for the coming season, Malaysian media reports suggest it may pull out of the league due to the inability to get sponsors.
Last April, team members of Perlis United, who were playing in the Liga M3 – now known as the A1 semi-pro league – were reportedly forced to take on jobs including tapping rubber because their salaries were not paid.
After the top-tier Super League, Malaysia's only professional league, there is the A1 semi-pro league followed by the A2 amateur league and A3 community league.
In the coming season, the MSL will feature 14 teams, with two teams – Melaka and Immigration – promoted from the A1 league, and the participation of Brunei's DPMM FC.
DON'T SPEND BEYOND MEANS, OFFICIALS SAY
The issue boils down to overspending, said Ng Wei Xian, Perak FC's former goalkeeping coach who joined around the time public-listed telco XOX acquired the club in August 2022 from Perak Football Association.
At the time, he recalled, the new management pledged it would not 'make the same mistakes as before' and would do things differently by building a young team with a well-managed budget, and 'slowly contend for the top places in Malaysian football'.
Following poor results, however, the club sacked its head coach Lim Teong Kim mid-season in May 2023, which led to Lim filing a complaint of wrongful dismissal with the Perak Department of Industrial Relations Malaysia.
After that, Ng said, the management turned to foreign imports to boost the squad, hoping for the players to 'outperform expectations on the pitch, bringing in more fans and revenue to get (the management) the return on their investment'.
The club's acquisitions in the 2023/2024 season included Serbia's Luka Milunovic and the Philippines' Jesper Nyholm, who joined in mid-2023 and left in December 2024.
What resulted were situations where some players' salaries were not paid, according to Ng.
'I could see it in my younger players that they were struggling to get by,' Ng said.
'They would ask me to buy them food or treat everyone to a meal, saying how they would have only eaten instant noodles or plain white rice and a fried egg with soy sauce for the entire week.'
A Malaysian who is a Singapore permanent resident, Ng, 31, used to coach at Singapore Premier League side Tampines Rovers, where he said he was always paid on time. He is now the first-team goalkeeping coach and head of analysis at A1 league side Bunga Raya Damansara FC.
Spending beyond one's means is not a problem restricted to Perak FC, noted Selangor FC technical committee chairman Shahril Mokhtar.
'At the end of the day, you should spend according to your budget and cash flow,' he said. 'What's happening now is that clubs are simply spending without knowing if they have the money.'
While some clubs like Selangor and JDT have bigger budgets than others in the MSL, there are those with smaller budgets, such as Penang and Kuching, that are doing well, observed Shahril.
Clubs have to decide where the balance lies in excelling at the highest stage possible and developing a healthy pipeline of homegrown talent, said veteran sports journalist and commentator Rizal Hashim.
Most Malaysian teams have foreigners in key positions – the main goalscorer, defensive midfielder, playmaker and goalkeeper – and this is perhaps inevitable for clubs striving for success in continental club football competitions like the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League, said Rizal.
The MFL has increased the foreign-player cap from 12 to 15 for the upcoming season, and 'the likes of JDT and Selangor would be happy because we are competing at a higher level in the AFC Champions League. But for other teams, they shouldn't hire 15 foreigners', said Shahril.
'Even hiring 15 foreigners, for us, will be very costly and I don't think we are going to do that,' he added.
Malaysia's sports minister Hannah Yeoh spoke up about the issue last month, calling for the country's football clubs to be managed by parties with genuine financial and managerial skills to boost investments in the domestic league and safeguard player welfare.
"Football has a large audience, which is why I believe that to convince sponsors, all they want to see is how a club is run, how they pay salaries or look after the welfare of players," Yeoh was quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama.
"I urge that those who are not capable should not touch it; let others take over. Sometimes, there are those who cannot manage but still want to hold on to power, preventing others from stepping in,' she said.
Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, the regent of Johor who owns JDT, has also spoken up about spending beyond one's means. If clubs have RM10, they should spend RM7, he posted on social media last November.
'Improve the infrastructure a little bit. Have realistic targets. That doesn't happen. Instead, everyone wants to be a populist and promises to win a trophy,' he wrote.
'You have RM10 but spend RM15. Then when you fail to pay salaries, everyone from the management to the fans blames the governing body (Football Association of Malaysia), MFL and the team that becomes champion, JDT. Everyone else is at fault except themselves. Malaysian football didn't fail, you failed!" said the outspoken regent.
MFL's Shazli said he hopes the Financial Fair Play regulations introduced last season will help clubs better manage their finances and prevent them from spending more than they earn.
He said that under the regulations, only 80 per cent of the club's income may be used for salaries and statutory payments for players, officials and staff as well as for the club's youth and development teams. The other 20 per cent can be used for the club's operations.
'It is very important that this is implemented because we don't want the same issues that crop up every year to happen again. We have the regulations, but the clubs need to follow them,' he said, adding that MFL is organising workshops for the clubs on the matter.
He, too, said clubs have to do their part to pull in sponsors and fans. 'When you have crowds, you can pull in the sponsors and generate more income,' he said.
A CHICKEN-AND-EGG SITUATION
But attracting and retaining sponsors is a challenge, football insiders said.
In February 2023, Bernama reported that international conglomerate Bin Zayed International had come on board as KDA FC's main international sponsor for the season. The club's majority owner Mohd Daud Bakar also listed several other sponsors the club had attracted.
But barely a year later in March 2024, the club was reportedly in financial trouble, with the state government calling for parties to help or sponsor the club, which had privatised in 2023, according to news outlet Malay Mail.
In 2021, clubs were required to privatise – turning from football associations (FAs) to football clubs – in order to play in the Super League and Premier League, the country's top professional tiers. The Premier League was discontinued in 2023.
The AFC had made it mandatory for qualifying clubs that want to compete in their competitions such as the AFC Champions League to obtain a licence through their respective member associations.
This meant that the teams had to be separate legal entities from their national or state FAs to ensure proper governance, financial transparency, and professional management.
In Malaysia, state governments had previously served as the main financiers for football teams, with annual budgets directly dependent on state allocations.
Shahril of Selangor FC said it is not easy to get sponsors for clubs in Malaysia as the return on investment is relatively low, unlike for major clubs in Europe that have a global fan base.
Much of the revenue of the world's major clubs are from broadcasting rights, not from match ticket sales, he said.
Football observers noted the chicken-and-egg situation when it comes to drawing sponsors and developing other revenue streams: A product has to be good for sponsors to be willing to come on board, but it is uncertain if the MSL has reached the standard.
'If you have a good product, the supporters and sponsors will come in. But right now, there is nothing in it for them,' said Zulakbal Abd Karim, a sports science and coaching lecturer at Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Malaysia.
Malaysia's clubs lack support from local fans, agreed sports analyst Pekan Ramli.
Only 56,000 fans turned up for this year's Malaysia Cup final match between JDT and Sri Pahang at the 90,000-capacity Bukit Jalil Stadium, he pointed out.
The lack of competition in the MFL does not help, Pekan said. JDT has won the league title for the past 11 years, and the recent increase of the cap on foreign players could further widen the gap between clubs.
'If some teams can have 15 imports but others can only afford two or three, is there fair play in that?' he questioned. 'We cannot just prioritise certain teams and leave others behind … we have to understand that the resources of each club are different.'
IS STATE FUNDING NEEDED?
Some analysts also believe federal and state government funding is still needed to help football clubs survive.
Citing the legacy of government backing in Malaysia's football ecosystem, football critic Rizal Hashim suggested ownership of clubs could be split between state governments and the private sector so that each party would have a stake in the clubs' performance and success.
'Our ecosystem was never club-based but state-based. The state government must have a stake in the FC business model entity via the state FAs. Teams like Perak, Kedah and Perlis suffered and have withdrawn because state governments don't see the need to bail them out,' he said.
In Perak FC's case, Perak Chief Minister Saarani Mohamad said on Apr 27 that the state government was unable to resolve the club's financial crisis.
The cost of financing professional football clubs in Malaysia had become "too expensive" for state governments to bear, Saarani said.
Perak's displaced players and staff are now left to chart their next steps.
Shivan is keeping his footballing dream alive and weighing offers from other clubs.
Football is a livelihood for many players, and he hopes the fraternity will come together to tackle the issues in Malaysian football.
Shivan, who is taking up a part-time degree course in business administration, also has this piece of advice for youths hoping to carve out a career in the sport: Pursue your footballing ambitions, but not at the expense of your studies.