Malaysian football never fails to surprise, does it?
The ongoing battle between Frenz United and Pahang – over the signatures of Kogileswaran and Dinesh – took a wild turn yesterday after Frenz released a statement claiming that both boys will not be training with Watford.
Both Kogi and Dinesh are currently in England, where they were scheduled to report for duty under Watford U-21 head coach Harry Kewell last Sunday. But rumours suggest that they did not show up on Sunday, before Frenz dropped a bombshell through their official Facebook page.
“We have received confirmation that both Kogi and Dinesh have not and will not be training with Watford FC during their trip to the UK,” Frenz United’s Technical Director, Steve McMahon said through the statement.
“Currently, we are still awaiting for FAM’s “ Grounds of Judgement” on their recent decision to enable us to proceed with our appeal to FAM and commencement of our civil proceedings against the two boys,” he added.
Predictably, the statement led to more confusion as fans to Twitter to seek clarification from Pahang’s ex-CEO, Fahrizal Hassan. His response, while cloaked with just the right amount of sarcasm, didn’t clear the confusion in any way.
Personal interests, greed & politics are what's spoiling today's football. Everyone should enjoy the beautiful game. pic.twitter.com/gf1pDTVJXU
— Fahrizal Hasan (@FahrizalHasan) March 21, 2016
The club on the other hand, is yet to issue a statement on Frenz United’s latest allegation, despite there being plenty of uproar on Facebook as well as Twitter.
WHAT DO WE THINK
While we’ve heard nothing from Pahang FA’s official communication channels, rumours are already spreading far and wide. Frenz claim that both boys won’t be training with Watford and rumours suggest that they didn’t report for duty last Sunday, which begs the question – what’s going on? An inside source suggested that Frenz United officials may have established contact with key individuals within Watford, before proceeding to explain the ongoing fiasco and convince the English side to pull the plug on hosting Kogi and Dinesh. On the other hand, another source claimed that the boys will be reporting for duty in the next few days, while refusing to shed light on why that wasn’t done last Sunday.
There are several things to point out here. Pahang FA’s lack of response is incredibly baffling as it’s leaving fans clueless. More importantly though, the ‘clarity vacuum’ is fuelling every negative rumour out there, regarding Pahang and both boys. Secondly, Frenz United’s involvement in the fiasco. While there’s no confirmation on whether individuals within Frenz United did convince Watford to pull the plug, it will be incredibly horrific if that ends up being the case. The ongoing legal battle is a serious issue and it shouldn’t be trivialized by anything. That being said, it would be completely counter-intuitive for a football academy – that champions player growth – to destroy a golden footballing opportunity for two of Malaysia’s brightest talents, under the banner of ‘corporate revenge’.
Of course, this is purely speculative at this point, it hasn’t been confirmed. But either way, this debacle is evolving into a poor representation of Malaysian football. While a statement from Pahang would provide clarity, the saga doesn’t seem like it will end anytime soon, with Frenz United determined to take both boys to court.
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