FAM’s necessary heart attack: Why a Fifa suspension is the best thing to happen to Malaysian football

I felt a cold sweat on my palms the moment I heard the FA of Malaysia (FAM) was seriously contemplating taking the recent heritage document scandal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It wasn’t the fear of a heavier penalty. No, it was the sickening realisation that the appeal might actually succeed, prompting a deeper Fifa investigation that would inevitably expose FAM’s recent “gross negligence” for what it truly is – incompetence so profound it borders on institutional self-sabotage.

Let’s be honest: What is FAM fighting for? The right to avoid the label of “cheat”? Fine.

But what they will also likely confirm is a systemic failure so deep it screams for Fifa’s nuclear penalty – a full suspension on grounds that FAM’s integrity and autonomy have been irrevocably compromised.

This is the great, awful paradox of Malaysian football. But sometimes, the only way to save the patient is to let the heart attack happen.

The rot is now so deep you can practically smell it through the television. A national player, Faisal Halim, was attacked with acid – an assault that literally burnt a world-class talent and threatened his career – and the subsequent investigation has been classified as ‘No Further Action’.

Then there’s the political soap opera. The former president waltzes back into the office as an honorary president, while the newly elected president suddenly decides to relieve himself of the top seat. Poof. Gone. One minute he’s the captain steering the ship; the next, he’s vanished – perhaps at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

All these festering, unresolved disasters are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a single, terminal disease. The entire organisation has existed for too long in the shadows of the ‘Influential Third Party’, a power source so potent and untouchable it makes the Federal Government look like a polite neighbourhood council.

When one entity holds the keys to the kingdom, what you get isn’t good governance; it’s a toxic form of benevolent dependency. The national association becomes less a governing body and more a highly paid errand service, paralysed by fear of upsetting the true authority.

Why bother with player safety, legal diligence or constitutional compliance when the only vote that matters belongs to a figure operating far, far above the payroll?

Frankly, the shadow and fear that loom within the halls of FAM are why we need more than a fine – we need the nuclear option. We need a full Fifa suspension.

Think of it as a forced vacation for the entire organisation – a mandatory, year-long fast. No international games, no Asian Football Confederation (AFC) money, no other deals. The consequence is brutal, yes. Our beloved Harimau Malaya would be parked like a supercar with a seized engine, unable to race.

We will lose a year, maybe two, of competitive fixtures. But that catastrophic moment of suspension will trigger the only mechanism capable of delivering genuine, structural reform – the Fifa Normalisation Committee.

This is football’s equivalent of sending in the UN peacekeepers armed with spreadsheets and a mandate for surgical obliteration. They arrive, confiscate the keys, tear down the old and rotten, and oversee the creation of a genuinely independent and democratic system.

They do the brutal, dirty, necessary work of ensuring the new regime is loyal to football – and nothing, and no one, else.

So yes, I wholeheartedly hope FAM decides to press on with its appeal to CAS. I pray that Fifa, upon seeing the true measure of FAM’s lack of control, will recognise that this system is neither able nor willing to govern itself.

I will celebrate that suspension not as a tragedy, but as the moment that allows us to rebuild a Malaysian football association whose highest priority is the country.

We must endure the pain of this heart attack. Because after the chaos, after the pain, we might finally get the clean, autonomous system our players – and our utterly devoted fans – actually deserve.

Now, about that Normalisation Committee … they’ll need very, very sturdy boots, and maybe a Hazmat suit.

The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.