SANTOKH DISAGREES
Former international against Malaysia using naturalised players
FORMER international Santokh Singh strongly believes that Malaysia should be represented by players who are born in this country.
Santokh, who used to be a lion in the heart of the Malaysian defence in the 1970s, disagreed with a suggestion by new FAM president Datuk Hamidin Amin that Malaysia need to rely on naturalised players from Brazil or Africa to move up the world rankings.
Santokh said FAM need not copy the Philippines who have used naturalised players for better results.
He sounded a big “no” to the proposal to recruit foreigners for the national team.
“How can we allow foreign players to represent the country?
“For me, the national jersey is for those who are born in the country
“There are countries who have taken this approach, but I believe there are many other ways to raise the standard of football.
“We can still have success without naturalised players as shown by Thailand whose development at the grassroots is very strong.”
On Saturday, FAM were enthusiastic to a proposal to include naturalised players to make Harimau Malaya stronger.
Hamidin had said that the proposal was at a suggestion stage, and much work needs to be done to realise it.
FAM had earlier given the green light to players who have one Malaysian parent to represent the country.
Among those who benefited from the decision are Matthew Davies (Pahang), Natxo Insa (JDT), Brendan Gan (Perak) and Khair Jones (Melaka United).
Meanwhile national Under-23 coach Ong Kim Swee said he did not call for Malaysia to withdraw from the Asian Games if the selected players were not released by their clubs.
On Saturday, the media reported that Malaysia might withdraw from the Asian Games, as many players have yet to get release letters to attend centralised training, which clashes with the Malaysia Cup fixtures.
However, Kim Swee said yesterday he respects the Asian Games, and he was talking about the rules of the tournament when the issue got misreported.
“I deny saying my team will withdraw from the Asian Games, as I only cleared the air on rules about players at the Games.
“I answered the media’s question on the effect of fielding only 18 players at the Asian Games, and it was not about withdrawing from the competition.”