Teong Kim is back as academy director

PETALING JAYA: Lim Teong Kim (pic) has been retained as the National Football Academy director.

This was decided after a steering committee headed by Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman looked into ways to restructure the National Football Development Programme (NFDP)

The others in the committee were Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), National Sports Council (NSC), National Sports Institute (NSI) and Education Ministry.

The task was to restructure the multi-million ringgit programme after it failed its Key Performance Index (KPI) of qualifying for the 2019 Under-17 World Cup in Peru.

Syed Saddiq said former international Teong Kim was retained as the Mokthar Dahari Academy (AMD)’s technical director as his contribution was still needed to beef up NFDP.

Former head of the methodology, coaches education and scouting committee Saad Ichalalene has been redesignated as the NFDP technical director.

FAM’s technical director Peter De Roo has been named as the programme’s technical advisor, whose job is to oversee NFDP and AMD.

“I’ve spoken to Teong Kim and he has expressed his willingness to report to the steering committee and I believe there’s a need to continue the synergy as we revamp the NFDP,” said Syed Saddiq after chairing the meeting at the Wisma FAM yesterday.

“We need to have a synergy from top to bottom and from the previous NFDP structure to the new one to make it work and move forward.”