The Professional Footballers Association of Malaysia (PFAM) have criticized Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) for taking too long to settle the issue of unpaid wages to Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM), Kelantan and Felda United. PFAM have urged these teams to resolve this before the M-League season starts this weekend.
PFAM CEO Izham Ismail revealed that FAM spent 100 days to simply open the investigation documents. On top of that, they did not even begin notifying the parties involved to conduct the investigation.
During a press conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Izham stated that the unpaid wages owed by the three clubs amounted to RM4.4 million. Of this total amount, Premier League side ATM did not pay RM3.7 million to 15 of their players, including former Harimau Muda player, K. Rueben.
Five former Kelantan players have not received their wages of RM477,000, while Azrul Ahmad of Penang was not paid an annual wage of RM220,000 during his time at Felda United.
“The FAM Status Committee is extremely inefficient as they are taking too long just to hear the cases,” Izham said according to Harian Metro.
“We found out that they can take up to a 100 days to open a case involving unpaid wages.
“We hope that FAM and Football Malaysia Limited Liability Partnership (FMLLP) will take effective actions on the teams who fail to pay before the deadline,” he added.
It was reported that FMLLP can punish the teams by disqualifying them from their respective leagues. Other than that, three to six points can be deducted from them at the start of the season.
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