NFDP should not be made a pawn to gain mileage for political purposes

ALMOST a decade back, football’s world governing body FIFA conducted an organisational review on the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) aimed at obtaining insights which were then interpreted, analysed and processed for the benefit of the domestic game.

As a stakeholder, the writer was among several individuals with a journalistic background familiar with the inner workings of the FAM who were invited to share our two cents.

I told the delegation, despite being the end-user, the FAM had little say in developing the game at grassroots level.

Under the Malaysian development pyramid, players under the age of 17 come under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Youth and Sports Ministry (KBS) via the National Sports Council (NSC).

The reality is, the FAM do not have autonomy in creating the products on the assembly line.

I am not too sure what happened to the report, though. One thing’s for sure, months earlier, the nation was captivated by the re-launch of the National Football Development Plan (NFDP) at the Mokhtar Dahari Academy in Gambang.

Why do I say relaunch?

Contrary to popular culture, NFDP was not introduced in 2014. The project was originally launched in 2011 but the wheels were already set in motion a year earlier when the committee chaired by the then Deputy Sports Minister Datuk Razali Ibrahim put in place a set of policies beginning February 2010.

NFDP was aimed at charting a road map for Malaysia to achieve higher goals, including producing 100 quality players ahead of the 2019 Under-17 FIFA World Cup.

It was established by the Ministry after the Federal Government pledged RM10mil a year for grassroots development following Malaysia’s success in ending the 20-year wait for the SEA Games gold medal in Laos, courtesy of the team helmed by Datuk K. Rajagobal.

Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek was the sports minister then. Comfortable not being in the limelight, Ahmad Shabery allowed Razali to chair the NFDP Commiittee which had among others the late Datuk Seri Zolkples Embong as ex-officio in his capacity as the NSC director-general, Datuk Seri Azzuddin Ahmad as the general secretary of the FAM, FAM technical committee member and Penang FA secretary Datuk Junid Mohd Noor, Sportwriters Association of Malaysia (SAM) president Ahmad Khawari Isa and Hassan Sulaiman, a football critic and grassroots leader.

The implementation machinery was led by the NSC through the football unit headed by Jefri Ngadirin, who was also the Director of Junior Development branch.

The whole country was then swept off its feet by the senior Harimau Malaya team that lifted the AFF Cup later in 2010, again thanks to Rajagobal’s Midas touch. An additional RM10mil was disbursed into the fund.

When Khairy Jamaluddin was appointed as the sports minister in 2013, he upgraded the project further through a holistic blueprint after a series of forensic audits conducted by his trusted group of confidants.

A more comprehensive structure was introduced and Khairy got the then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak to launch it. It was a carefully curated exercise with Najib kickstarting the project at the academy named after one of the nation’s most beloved footballers.

Now almost a decade on, has NFDP been effective in producing players with the calibre to go beyond regional level?

The recent failure of the Malaysian Under-17 team in creating an impression at the AFC Asian Cup in Bangkok has raised yet another burning question – should football development at school level be left to a government agency or should the FAM as the committee-based national sports association (NSA) that have a full-time secretariat, run the show?

With a major portion of the annual budget of more than RM30mil coming from the Federal Government, both parties are suspicious of each other. The NSC feel the FAM would be too extravagant in their spending, while the national body feel they are entitled to have their fingers on the pie.

Admittedly, the success of the NFDP is contingent upon critical stakeholders delivering the goods.

But if we ask former NFDP experts such as Lim Kim Chon, his successor and younger brother Lim Datuk Lim Teong Kim and Saad Ichalelene, we need to overcome cultural barriers in order to succeed.

Sadly, due to football’s universal appeal, NFDP will continue to be a political tool – for better or worse.