Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim told Bahasa Malaysia daily Kosmo and its publisher Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd to shut down if they continue to publish "cheap gossip" and articles designed to "instigate the people."

“This is the mentality of our Malay society in some places in Malaysia.

“Every month, millions are given to Kosmo, which is under the Utusan flagship, but their main purpose is only to instigate people and write news such as cheap gossip.

“My advice to the government, it may be best if you just shut this newspaper company down rather than wasting people’s money,” he said in a statement posted on the Johor Southern Tigers Facebook page.

He appeared to be lashing out against a Kosmo article titled “Tunku Ismail guris hati peminat” (Tunku Ismail slights fans) for highlighting a joke he made during a dialogue session held at the JDT Cafe in Johor last night.

In the article, the daily claimed that local football fans were slighted by his remarks about the Malaysian football team not being “his national team.”

The Football Association of Malaysia president supposedly said during the dialogue that “Your national team is not my (national team). I am from Johor, you know.”

“After a dialogue of more than an hour regarding football and current issues, only the joke in the last 20 seconds of my dialogue is now trending.

“This is one of the reasons why I don’t read newspapers in this country anymore,” the crown prince said in the Facebook posting today.