KUALA LUMPUR: The FA of Malaysia (FAM) today announced that the contracts of national team chief executive officer Robert Douglas Friend, better known as Rob Friend, and national coach Peter Cklamovski have been terminated by mutual agreement. A fitting headline would include the words ‘good riddance’.
After all, the national team was supposed to be a ‘world-class’ setup, according to Friend. And everything else that went against the national team was simply labelled as “noise”, Cklamovski’s favourite word.
The duo may claim that under their watch, the national team played well and consistently rose in the Fifa rankings – from 131 in April 2025 to 116 in November 2025.
But the fact remains that the doctored documentation scandal involving seven footballers happened during their watch. The seven who were suspended for 12 months and fined were Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomás Garcés, Rodrigo Julián Holgado, Imanol Javier Machuca, João Vitor Brandão Figueiredo, Jon Irazábal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano.
The saga not only hurt Malaysia’s rankings but also tarnished the nation’s reputation.
And while the duo leave for presumably “greener pastures”, the scandal that attracted global attention remains unresolved and unanswered.
According to FAM, Friend’s contract ended on June 1. Cklamovski and two other senior technical squad staff members, Matthew Smith and Seiya Imazaki, left on June 16. The national body, in a statement, said it respected the decision made by the individuals and recorded its appreciation and thanks for their commitment during their stint.
But any sincere thanks and appreciation should only be recorded if all parties come clean, once and for all, over the doctored documentation scandal. Expecting Malaysians to “move on” is utter nonsense.
The early departures may also signal that the national team will no longer operate as another “entity”. On Oct 17, 2025, Friend said there were three entities in Malaysian football, with the national team being one of them, before clarifying that there was only one body, FAM.
This was also addressed by Asian Football Confederation deputy secretary-general Vahid Kardany when he presented the findings of the regional body’s audit into FAM at the national body’s extraordinary congress on June 4. Kardany said: “We strongly recommend that the federation be in charge of the national team.”
The early goodbyes could be viewed as new beginnings for all involved – FAM, Friend, Cklamovski and the rest. But Malaysian football cannot move to the next chapter if it cannot end the previous one.
And the last thing we need is a movie depicting this embarrassing international scandal that ends with a slide reading: “And till today, those responsible for the doctored documentation saga remain out there.”