Spoilt brats! (17/08/1994 - The Malay Mail)

Publication : MM
Date : 17/08/1994
Headline : Spoilt brats!


SOCCER players in the country are fast gaining a reputation as an
ungrateful and spoilt lot.
And with news fast spreading that soccer players are into `fixing
matches' these days, their reputation has deteriorated further.
Indeed, a majority of the local soccer players hardly know the word
`professional'.
The players claim to be professionals because the game has now become
their bread and butter in Malaysia but everything is just a cosmetic
change.
The players are as amateur as they were before the game went semi-pro in
1989 and professional this year.
Soccer players earn anything between RM1,000 and RM15,000 per month
without any proper academic qualifications.
A graduate from a university expects to earn about RM800 to RM1,000 in
his first job.
Soccer players train about for a maximum of two to three hours for five
days a week and play 90 minutes of soccer at the end of the week. A normal
wage earner works between seven and ten hours a day and his wages do not
even come close to soccer players.
Even a doctor who does locum tenons is paid only about RM130 to RM160
for a seven to eight-hour job when a soccer player who earns an average of
RM6,000 gets about RM200 for two to three hours of training a day.
And some of them do not even have the Sijil Rendah Pendidikan (SRP or
LCE)!
But the players sadly are not as professional as the doctors or other
skilled workers doing their jobs.
Soccer players have fancy cars, luxurious homes, spend quite a bit on
entertainment and, in short, live life on the fast lanes and come under
the high society bracket.
Of course the players defend their high wages by saying that they have a
short playing career and they have to earn high wages now to support
themselves later.
All this is fine, if they go about their jobs (playing the game) with
all sincerity and commitment.
Mockery
But most of the time, half of the professionals take the State FAs of
even the national body for a ride.
They play when want to and take it easy when they feel like it.
And at the end of the day, the losers, besides the game itself, are the
fans who fork out their hard earned wages to watch these players make a
mockery of themselves.
And to add salt to the injury, some players are involved with the fixing
of matches and, in the process, earning some unbelievable sums of money by
cheating the public and the soccer administrators.
Sometimes, one begins to wonder if these players have such a greed for
money just to maintain their high profile and expensive lifestyles.
Worst of all, these players do not justify their high salaries by trying
to put up a decent performance.
And at the end of the season, the players market themselves and the
State FAs fall for their tricks whereby they will haggle with other States
to secure their services and inevitably "jacking up" these players'
salaries.
It is about time these players put the brakes and think seriously
whether they are doing justice to the soccer fans and the game.
If these players have any conscience, they will repent and give the
value the game deserves.