KUALA LUMPUR – The Sports Commissioner’s Office has made it clear that the Football Coaches’ Association of Malaysia will not be deregistered from the administrative body.
Initially, the office initially had plans to deregister associations that did not comply with the Sports Development Act 1997.
The act is designed to promote and facilitate the development and administration of sports in Malaysia and to provide for other related matters.
Screenings had been conducted with all the sports associations to determine their relevance to the act.
The football coaches’ association was initially assumed to be an irrelevant association by the administrative body due to it not being as active in terms of sports development compared to other sports associations.
However, it was found that the football coaches’ body, which falls under the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), did not breach the criteria of the act.
Speaking to Scoop, Sports Commissioner Suhardi Alias said that the coaches’ association was sent a notice to come to the commissioner’s office to provide a detailed briefing on the association’s role before any drastic actions were taken against them.
“We have… hundreds of associations registered in the Sports Commissioner’s Office, and not all of them are related to the Sports Development Act, which was previously mandated by the former leadership.
“We were planning to deregister and transfer some of these inactive and irrelevant associations to the Registrar of Societies, as they belong there and do not contribute to the development of a sport. Some of them are even fan clubs, and we have deregistered them.
“At first, we were unclear about the role of (the football coaches’ association) and what their role is in developing a sport, and we did not know that they were affiliated with FAM.
“However, after our discussion with FAM secretary-general Datuk Noor Azman Rahman, we found out that (the coaches’ association) does its part for developing the sport, especially for coaches.
“We discovered that (the coaches’ body) was involved in licensing coaches and also in developing accreditation for coaches. Hence, after meeting with the FAM secretary-general, we were satisfied with the explanation and decided to retain them,” said Suhardi.
For context, the Registrar of Societies is a department under the Home Ministry that handles non-governmental organisations and political parties.
The Football Coaches’ Association of Malaysia was established in 1994 to protect and defend the rights of the country’s football coaches.
Under its president Datuk Ong Kim Swee, there are currently around 700 active members in the association.
Formerly the vice-president, Kim Swee assumed the role of acting president following the passing of B. Sathianathan, who had died of cancer last year. – February 23, 2024