Financing Football in Malaysia

Football can be a beautiful game but human weakness is apparent as seen in the Portugal-England and Portugal-Holland matches.

In some games, country rivals who belong to the same club displayed great sportsmanship but in other games players simply became too aggressive when their teams played badly.

Could it be that the football-millionaires could not accept losing as their own net worth could be diminished?
The Portugal-Holland match was extremely violent and ugly and a good example of bad sportsmen. It was as if the players were on the battlefield with no quarter asked or given. Maybe some researcher will discover that some of those players had ancestors who fought in Malacca centuries ago?

Back to the football scene in Malaysia. Today’s Star has a report about how MBPJ has a slush or secret fund to finance football but surprisingly the RoS has no record of MBJB Football Club.

What does the FAS have to say about this?

If there are no accounts to be checked on how taxpayers’ monies are utilised, how do we ensure that the money is used properly?

I have a beef about foreign players being allowed to play in Malaysia, as their involvement has not really improved the standard of our local players over the years.

Instead of paying a foreign player say RM10, 000 a month plus bonuses, we should use the money to engage good coaches who can train our youth proper techniques. The millions spent to pay foreign players would be better spent on football academies to train the youth.

Maybe we should also ask Proton how much they pay Portsmouth Football Club for their logo on the club website and jerseys. Apart from getting some season tickets, how many Proton cars have been effectively sold?

Proton is not the only company involved in football.
I attended the Kulim AGM recently and asked why the company donated RM3.15 million to the Johor Football Association in 2005.

In 2004 they donated RM3.025m but in 2003 the amount was RM1.976m
Even after a 50% increase in 2004, they decided to be more generous in 2005.

It was explained that RM3.15m was part of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program but on checking the amount spent on CSR amounting to RM3.3413m, the donation to football was 94% of the funds. Footballers got chicken while the rest got chicken feed!

I guess it is easy to donate other people’s money. Meanwhile a net dividend of RM14.157m was paid to 8492 shareholders.

The RM3.15m donation to JFA benefited perhaps 100 players, staff and officials so it seems being involved in football is more profitable then being a Kulim shareholder as there is no risk of losing money.

If a major shareholder like Johor Corporation wants to promote football, it should donate its own dividend instead of penalising minority shareholders.
The donation is about 22% of the net dividends paid.

Public companies that donate to various causes can adopt a clear policy on how payments are made like:

1. Donation pegged to a max of 10% of net dividends paid to shareholders.
2. Amount is on year to year basis and depends on profits.
3. No increase in donation unless dividends also increased.
4. Report made on how donation is utilised.

Other countries in Asia have made great progress in soccer, notably Japan and South Korea but Malaysians are still waiting for things to happen. But I won’t be holding my breath!

Photo: http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2006/writers/grant_wahl/06/21/us.ghana/t1_0621_donovan_getty.jpg