It is not the Football Association of Malaysia’s (FAM) job to produce players – that responsibility lies with the state football associations.
That was the view of former Malaysian footballer Reduan Abdullah, who played in the 1970s and 1980s – widely considered the golden era of Malaysian football.
“The states are the ones who produce footballers ... development starts from Under-12, Under-13, and continues until they become senior players,” said Reduan.
“Now we are fixated with senior players. To me, FAM is not supposed to produce players – they just gather the best for the national team. The ones who develop these players are the states.”
He added that most state FAs do not work closely with district-level associations to unearth talent – including match officials.
“Money has to be spent on development. If we look at other nations, they invest a lot in grassroots development.”
Reduan also pointed out that most football clubs competing in the domestic league do not own their stadiums, training fields, or academies.
He noted that there are easily some 4,000 players in the Akademi Mokhtar Dahari and various district training centres nationwide.
“Don’t tell me we can’t turn at least 10 per cent of them into good footballers?” he asked.
“It boils down to coaching. Also, we need year-long leagues – with teams playing at least 35 to 40 matches a year. Right now, the school-level competitions are run on a carnival basis.”
Reduan stressed that young footballers need playing time, and that the leagues must be competitive.
When told that grassroots football has become increasingly results-driven instead of development-focused, Reduan said children aged seven to 12 should simply have fun playing the sport.
He then outlined the different stages of a footballer’s journey – starting from playing for fun, progressing to learning to train, then training to train, and finally, training to compete.
Catch the full episode of Julang here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k2vB3bbc0A&t=70s
