Level Field: PENALTY KICKS TOURNAMENT BECOMING A CRAZE NOW

Monday, September 9, 2024

PENALTY KICKS TOURNAMENT BECOMING A CRAZE NOW

MELWOOD BOYS FC SHOW THE WAY

Melwood Boys FC of Sungei Buluh, organised their inaugural Penalty Kick tournament at their scenic Melwood Arena, on Saturday, and it was an overwhelming success.

The Penalty Kick tournament is the latest craze in the country and not a week goes by without tournament being organised around the country by clubs both social and officially registered clubs.

It is no surprise to find not less than 100 teams competing in each tournament.

XMAIL FC KUALA LUMPUR

Melwood Boys FC established in 2003 is well managed club with Hari Chandran at the helm as president and with his vision with his business partner SP Thanda, they have set up a beautiful two pitch arena with floodlights amongst nature and surrounded by pictureque hills at Sungei Buluh, away from the hustle and bustle of the city which is just 15 minutes away.

They started their dream by renting the plot, cleared the area and built it from scratch.

It is an excellent pitch and together with a dedicated team of officials of the club, the club is certainly setting a great example for other clubs to follow and with a high degree of professionalism.

Ulu Kelang Recreation Club (UKRC) is another private club who fought tooth and nail to save their field from development and later ownership, and now back in their hands, have restored back the field to an excellent condition throughn painstaking efforts and organised their 18^th UKRC International Soccer 9s, where ten teams took part over the weekend.

Indeed clubs like these should applauded for their love and passion for the game and sacrifice and dedication.

At the Melwood Penalty Kick tournament, about 120 teams (including registered teams after their initial loss) competed and it was not an easy feat to manage the tournament.

But organising chairman, A. Chandrasegaran, with his team officials including former Kuala Lumpur team captain, K. Ramachandran, who is now coaching the Melwood FC team, did a great job to manage the tournament to see a smooth end in the evening.

However, there were areas which could have been managed better.

Many teams were complaining about the timings of the schedules.

While the tournament was scheduled to begin at 9am, it only started past 10am because the organisers were doing manual registration, when it could have been done online to save time.

Another concerned raised, was allowing teams who failed to qualify for the next round after the first round of league of four teams in a group, to re-register and compete again, which went on for too long into past noon.

Teams who has qualified for the next round, had to wait close to four hours before they went for their next round of kicks.

Teams who had lost in the first round and wanted a second chance had to pay only RM100.00 as opposed to the entry fee of RM165.00 and while the organisers were trying to reap in as money as possible, it greatly inconvenienced the teams with no proper cut off time.

To compound matters further, teams who arrived past 11am were allowed to register to compete by paying the full entrance fee.

While a majority of the teams who took the trouble to be at the ground before 9am, it was indeed unfair to allow the late comers to compete.

But all said and done, it was still a very well managed tournament with some minor hiccups. It was Melwood FC's first time they were organising, and it can only get better with good leaders and administrators with the club.

It was indeed an interesting tournament with players ranging from school children, teenagers, veterans and ex-internationals and of all races competing in a carnival and friendly atmosphere.

While the tournament rule allowed a maximum of five players to be registered per team, there were many with less than five players in their team and several registered only one player and the one player who was the goalkeeper and kicker.

One such player was Aris Hakimi from Lakum FC who finished fourth.