Football involves large number of players in a team (11 players) plus a few substitutes. Today, the state of Malaysian football is rather pathetic and dying. I could say that Malaysian football was at its peak during the 70s.

Some of us would not have forgotten that our national football team was nearly on par with South Korea. Quite often, Malaysia and South Korea would meet in the final matches.

It was during this time that we had our football legends ie, Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Ann, V Arumugam and not forgetting Santokh Singh. Now, South Korea is of World Cup standard and we are still at a very low level.

The real highlight of Malaysian football then was the annual Merdeka Cup. During that event, all the countries in the region plus South Korea would send their top teams with their top players. The Merdeka Cup tournament is very nostalgic for most of us in the 40s and above.

This includes my late father-in-law who stayed in Muar, Johor but who without fail would put up in my house Klang and go for all the games which Malaysia participated in. During this tournament, any game played by Malaysia in Merdeka Stadium would see the stadium at full capacity or at least three-quarters full.

However today, whenever Malaysia plays a football game, the venue would only be about a quarter full. Only sometimes for a few specific games do you see a decent crowd. Inadequate supporters is one of the major reasons for the downfall of Malaysian football.

I need not tell you that for a player, the more cheers he gets from the crowd, the more is his will to perform. FAM should come up with a correct and effective strategy to bring back the supporters to the football stadiums.

One of the reason for poor turnouts is that there are more alternatives which give more entertainment to the supporters rather than seeing their football teams play a pathetic game. If the players come up with a good and spirited games, the crowd will flock back to the stadiums.

FAM thought a good coach would produce a good team and they tried so many coaches both foreign and local, famous and unknown, World Cup and Third Division standard. Most of them did not produce significant results.

FAM failed to realise that a good coach alone is not enough. You need to have good pool of players to choose from. You also need to give the coach a free hand to handle the team.

It is well-known that quite often in Malaysian sports, a third party gets involved in the selection of players to represent Malaysian or in any other decision-making.

Coaches must be given an adequate and realistic time frame to come with the team he has promise to create. In practice however, the coach is prematurely assessed after only a short stint. A decent assessment of a coach, I was told, would take at least three seasons.

The players, too, are at the losing end. The average national player dare not take up football as his career since he would not earn much playing football instead of getting employed elsewhere.

To conclude, I would say all those who are involved in Malaysian sports and its welfare should coordinate and cooperate with one another.