Football Association of Malaysia has confirmed that the Malaysian national football team will be known as the Harimau Malaysia, replacing their previous nickname, Harimau Malaya.
The announcement was made at the Royale Chulan Hotel in Kuala Lumpur earlier today, in a ceremony that was organized to reveal new sponsors for the national team.
Malaysia has been widely known as Harimau Malaya since the 1950s, when Sukarno, who was the Indonesian President at that point, used the term to refer to Malaysian striker Dollah Don, after his impressive performances at the 1953 Merdeka Cup.
But over the years, plenty of individuals have criticized the use of the nickname, claiming that it indirectly excludes Sabah and Sarawak from the equation. The term ‘Malaya’ refers to what the country was known after it’s independence in 1957, but before it joined forces with Sabah and Sarawak, to form Malaysia.
More recently, Youth and Sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin also raised questions regarding the nickname, claiming that it’d be better for the national team to be referred to as Harimau Malaysia, instead.
“To kickstart a new era in Malaysian football, we’ve decided that the Harimau Malaya nickname is no longer relevant,” FAM President Tengku Abdullah told reporters.
“It’s because the term ‘Malaya’ has been rarely used since the inception of Malaysia in 1963. This new nickname will also reflect the fact that Malaysian football belongs to everyone in the country, including those in Sarawak and Sabah as well,” he added.
Meanwhile, FAM also confirmed that the national team will be sponsored by four major companies – Nike, TM, Bank Islam and 100Plus – this year.
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