FMLLP introduces Challenge Cup
FOOTBALL Malaysia Limited Liability Partnership (FMLLP) will introduce the Challenge Cup for teams that do not qualify for the Malaysia Cup next season.
FMLLP chief executive officer, Kevin Ramalingam said the competition was created after the Malaysia Cup has returned to being a competition on its own, separate from next season’s league action. And the new competition will fill the void in the local football calendar.
“After looking closely at the new Malaysia Cup format over the last two seasons, we found that there was space where the three last matches have long intervals from one match to the next.
“We noticed that there was a need to make further improvements, so we returned to the original Malaysia Cup format and introduce a competition for eight teams that do not qualify for the Malaysia Cup to ensure that these teams remain in action throughout the season.
“However, we are still ironing out the finer details of the competition mechanism and most likely teams that get eliminated early on from the Malaysia Cup competition will also take part in the new competition,” he said yesterday. ier today.
On Wednesday, it was made known that the Malaysia Cup will return to being a competition on its own as it will be held outside of next season’s league competition after being carried out concurrently with the league for two seasons.
This means that the new competition format used last year and this year will no longer be implemented and qualification for the Malaysia Cup will be determined by the teams’ positions when the Super League and Premier League draw to a close.
Based on the format last year and this year, the qualification for the 16 teams was determined by the top 11 teams in the Super League and the top five teams from the Premier League after the end of the first round.
At the same time, Kevin explained that the Challenge Cup will see teams playing more matches which will aid in not just developing and exposing the team, but all their players as well. Syafiq Aznan