No M3 League teams in 2023 Super League

KUALA LUMPUR: No amateur clubs or M3 League teams will feature in next season’s restructured Super League.

The Malaysian Football League (MFL) said in a statement on Tuesday that the First Instance Body (FIB) had decided that there will be no playoffs among the top two M3 League teams and bottom two 2022 Premier League sides for the two slots in the 2023 Super League.

FIB chairman Sheikh Mohd Nasir said only seven clubs – PIB FC, Harini FT, BRM FC, Immigration FC, Armed Forces FC, Kinabalu Jaguar FC and Manjung City FC - had applied for the M3 Amateur League Club licensing, which closed on Sept 17.

However, only PIB FC and Harini FT had shown good progress but still did not complete all the professional club criteria to be able to obtain a licence.

“The PIB FC showed very good performance in the competition by ending up as champions but the documents they submitted were incomplete. Harini, meanwhile, failed to finish among the top two in the M3 League, in addition to not completing the licensing application criteria required to qualify them to play in the playoffs.

“This is the new process for M3 League clubs and we believe it can give all the clubs an idea of the criteria required for each club to advance to the 2024 Super League season,” he said.

The new format in the Malaysia League (M-League) will see 18 teams in the Super League while second tier Premier League will be discontinued temporarily before it is re-launched as the Semi-Pro League after the third division development programme reaches a certain level.

Next season’s Super League will feature all 12 teams from the current top tier league as well six from the Premier League.

This season, 12 teams are competing in the Super League, while the Premier League involved 10 teams, including three feeder clubs (JDT II, Selangor 2 and Terengganu II) and the FAM-NSC Project Squad.