KUALA LUMPUR – Former Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) president Tan Sri Hamidin Mohd Amin has dismissed allegations by veteran sports analyst Datuk Dr Pekan Ramli that the association failed to table its financial audit reports for years, insisting that FAM had consistently complied with its auditing obligations under its statutes.
Speaking to Scoop, Hamidin said Pekan’s claims were inaccurate and risked creating confusion over the association’s financial governance.
“I would like to clarify that Pekan’s statement is not correct. FAM has never failed, from the past until this year, to have its financial audits conducted according to the processes set out by the finance committee, the exco and congress.
“We have never failed to comply with the requirements stipulated in the FAM statutes,” he said.
Hamidin said FAM’s financial accounts had been subjected to multiple layers of scrutiny, including audits by qualified external auditors, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
“Our accounts have been audited by qualified auditors and presented to congress. In addition, there are audits conducted by FIFA and the AFC because FAM receives funding from them,” he said.
His remarks come after it was reported that Pekan called on the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate revelations contained in an AFC audit, which he claimed showed that FAM had allegedly failed to table its financial audit reports since 2016.
Describing Hamidin’s earlier explanation of an “oversight” as unacceptable, Pekan argued that such a prolonged lapse could not be dismissed as negligence and warranted scrutiny by enforcement agencies. However, Hamidin maintained that the issue raised by the AFC related specifically to the presentation of annual budgets and not audited financial statements.
According to him, the matter only arose after amendments were made to FAM’s statutes in 2023. “The budget issue referred to by the AFC yesterday did happen, but it is not something that has been going on for the past 10 years.
It only started in 2023 when we amended our constitution and statutes. “Before that, from 2010 onwards, only FIFA and AFC grants were involved,” he said.
Hamidin acknowledged that budgets for the period between 2023 and 2025 were not presented at congress, but stressed that they were nevertheless tabled and endorsed through the association’s internal governance structures.
“From 2023 to 2025, the only matter that was not presented was the budget. However, the budget was still tabled and approved by the exco and the finance committee.
“Other financial matters were fully audited by FIFA, the AFC and our internal auditors,” he said.
The controversy emerged following discussions surrounding findings highlighted during yesterday’s FAM’s extraordinary congress, where AFC recommendations on governance and statutory reforms became a focal point of debate among delegates and observers.
Pekan had argued that the AFC audit pointed to deeper governance concerns within the national football governing body and questioned how such matters could have escaped the attention of FAM’s leadership for an extended period.
Hamidin, however, insisted that the association’s financial management processes remained intact and had continued to undergo regular auditing and oversight throughout his tenure. – June 5, 2026