IT AIN'T OVER YET!

 

13 TEAMS GRANTED CLUB LICENSE TO COMPETE IN CIMB LIGA SUPER 2021 & LIGA PREMIER 2021; 7 TEAMS WITH CONDITIONAL LICENSE

A total of 10 out of 12 teams that are competing in the CIMB Liga Super 2020 was granted their national club license to enable them to compete in the CIMB Liga Super 2021, if eligible.

The 10 teams are Felda United FC, UiTM FC, Johor Darul Ta’zim FC, Kedah FA, PDRM FA, Perak FA, Petaling Jaya City FC, Sabah FA, Selangor FA and Terengganu FC.

The remaining two teams namely; Pahang FA and Melaka FA were granted conditional national license. 

For everyone’s attention, although the club licensing request for Felda United FC was approved, in accordance to the club licensing documentation, the FAM secretariat was requested to obtain further justification from Felda Holdings on the football club (FC) status for Season 2021.

Meanwhile, three out of eight teams that will be competing in the Liga Premier 2020 has received their national club license that will enable them to compete in the CIMB Liga Super 2021 or Liga Premier 2021, if eligible.

The three teams are Kelantan United FC, Kuala Lumpur FA and Negeri Sembilan FA. 

The remaining five teams that were granted conditional license are Kuching FA, Kelantan FA, UKM FC, Pulau Pinang FA and Sarawak United FC.

As additional information, the FAM FIB is not satisfied with the information that was shared by the highest management of UKM on their FC status for Season 2021 after referring to their license request and privatization documentation.

These matters had been decided during the First Instance Body (FIB) FAM Club Licensing meeting that was held in Shah Alam from 1 until 2 October 2020.

Should the teams that were granted with the conditional national license fail to complete the requirement before or on 31 October 2020, FIB has the rights to take further actions which may include fine, point deduction, relegation and/or their license revoked.

We would also like to inform that only 9 out of 20 CIMB Liga Super 2020 and Liga Premier 2020 that has applied for the AFC license for Season 2021with only 8 teams having passed and granted with the AFC license to enable these teams to compete in the Asian Champions League 2021 and the AFC Cup 2021, if eligible.

These teams are Johor Darul Ta’zim FC, Perak FA, Selangor FA, Terengganu FC, Felda United FC, Petaling Jaya FC, Kedah FA and Kuala Lumpur FA.

However, Melaka FA has failed to obtain their AFC license due to failure to meet the requirement set for the AFC licensing.

The remaining 11 teams that did not apply for the AFC 2021 license consisted of four teams from CIMB Liga Super 2020; Pahang FA, Sabah FA, UiTM FC and PDRM FA including Kelantan FA, Kelantan United FC, Negeri Sembilan FA, Pulau Pinang FA, Kuching FA, UKM FC and Sarawak United FC from Liga Premier 2020.

To enable a team to be granted a club license as stipulated in the FAM Club Licensing Regulation Edition 2020, they are required to pass the assessment made on these 6 main criteria name;

 

1.   Sports

2.   Infrastructure

3.   Officials and administration

4.   Legislation

5.   Finance

6.   Business

However, financial-related criteria often raise questions when a team is known to have problems with arrears of salaries of players and officials, or arrears related to the EPF, IRB and SOCSO are still given full or conditional club licenses by FAM.

For that, explained in detail below on the justifications why were these teams are granted with license or conditional license:

 

1. KEDAH FA

i) Although Kedah still has four months of salary arrears beginning May, June, July and August, they have however, submitted a letter of mutual agreement between the players and officials with an instalment payment schedule for the outstanding amount.

ii) Based on the agreement between the players and officials, FAM has granted the club license approval but in the event that the instalment payment is found not to be made according to the set schedule, among the actions that can be taken includes revocation of license and deduction of points.

 

2. PDRM

i) Although PDRM still had salary arrears with its players and official earlier this year, they have managed to conclude it before the end of February 2020 after the 3-point deduction of CIMB Liga Super 2020 on 3 February 2020.

ii) This is one of the many impacts from FAM’s action to have all teams to submit the Statutory Declaration (SD) end of last year to declare if they have any salary arrears and plans to settle the outstanding amount.

 

3. MELAKA FA

i) The reply letter from the LHDN regarding Melaka's application to pay arrears in instalments was found to be unclear. Although LHDN had informed that they received a letter from Melaka but it did not state whether they (LHDN) agreed or not with the application from the team.

ii) Melaka, which had salary arrears with players and officials since the beginning of the year, however has successfully settled all of the arrears until 30 September 2020.  This is also the impact from the declaration of SD in which the team received a CIMB Liga Super 2020 3-point deduction on 20 Mac 2020 due to their failure to settle the remaining balance of salary arrears according to their payment schedule.

 

4. PAHANG FA

i) Letter of application to LHDN, KWSP and Perkeso to settle payment arrears has been received by these bodies. However, there are information in these letters to these bodies that were not shared and this requires further justification from Pahang.

 

5. KELANTAN FA

i) In the beginning of 2020, Kelantan recorded a total of 18 outstanding salary cases with a total of more than RM4 million.

ii) However, recently, there are only three cases of salary arrears that have not been completed or are in the process, thus seeing the old cases since 2017 have been successfully resolved by Kelantan. Also among the following cases, a mutual agreement has been made and proof of this mutual agreement has been submitted for club licensing before the deadline of 30 September 2020.

iii) Besides that, through making the declaration of SD compulsory to all teams, a total of 121 salary arrears were able to be finalized and concluded after they too received a Liga Premier 2020 3 point-deduction due to their failure to settle the remaining balance of salary arrears according to their payment schedule.

 

6. KUCHING FA

i) The audit report requires information for confirmation from the FIB FAM Club Licensing to fully comply with the requirements of the criteria.

 

7. UKM FC

i) The letters to the bodies, LHDN and KWSP requires further information to comply in order to meet the requirement of the criteria.

 

8. PULAU PINANG FA

i) The audit report requires information for confirmation from the FIB FAM Club Licensing to fully comply with the requirements of the criteria.

 

9. SARAWAK UNITED FC

i) The process of preparing audit report and interim were irregular. The FIB FAM Club Licensing proposed to finalize the audit and interim reports as they wish to meet the stipulated conditions.

 

Based on the above justification, this shows that FAM is not arbitrarily granting conditional licenses to the teams that were involved, instead it is made based on the supporting documentation evidence that was presented to FAM in addition to follow-up monitoring actions that will be done by FAM so that the conditions are complied with.

Besides that, through making the declaration of SD compulsory to all teams beginning end of last year, has also shown a positive impact for the club licensing process, especially to ensure the issues of salary arrears amongst players and officials as well as KWSP, LHDN and Perkeso can be resolved or it would not take a long period to have it finalized and concluded.

Furthermore, the arrears that were taken into account for the club license application for each cycle year is only until June 30 of that year, so the SD that needs to be submitted by end of the year is for FAM being able to monitor and obtain information if should there be any arrears that occur between July to November (i.e. until the end of the season) every year.

Thus, the same process will continue for the second year in 2020 where each team is obligated to submit their respective SD to FAM no later than 15 December 2020 to declare if they have arrears of salaries of players and officials for the main team, Piala Presiden and Piala Belia until 30 November 2020 as well as other arrears involving the KWSP, LHDN and Perkeso as well as the team’s plans to clear out the outstanding debts.

This is to ensure that will be no arrears from 2020 that will be brought to the 2021 season.

Both the club licensing process and statutory declaration has also facilitated FAM in reducing the number or total of arrears of salaries of players and officials from year to year.

For example, the total number of arrears of payment to players and officials (including salaries & compensation) that have been decided by FAM and FIFA in 2019 and 2020 were 65 cases amounted to RM8,694,100.32.

However, after FAM worked closely with all the teams involved and stressed the importance of resolving the arrears to obtain the club license, the latest number of active cases are very low with seven cases only.

As of 30 September 2020, the total number of payment arrears that were successfully resolved are 58 cases amounted to RM 8,129,160.59.

Furthermore, FAM through making the declaration of SD mandatory in 2019, it had successfully resolved a total of 297 cases of payment arrears to players and officers with a total amounted RM912,717.08.

This national license and AFC license is valid for a period of one season, only for season 2021 and throughout the season, if any team is found to be in violation of the articles stipulated in the FAM Club Licensing Regulation Edition 2020 or in any circumstances that would cause license issuers (FAM) to be not satisfied, their club license can be revoked.

Last but not least, FAM would like to congratulate the teams that have successfully obtained their national club license and the AFC license for their outstanding efforts in ensuring their application is successful though affected with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sheikh Mohd Nasir Sheikh Mohd Sharif

FAM Club Licensing FIB Chairman