Well, it’s about time.
The Harimau Malaysia squad were supposed to fly to Pyongyang to play North Korea on the 28th of March for the group B Asian Cup qualifiers.
The match was to be held at the Kim Il Sung stadium in North Korea.
However, that match had to be postponed after Kim Jong-Nam, the brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Un, got assassinated at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on the 13th of February.
Kim Jong-Nam was preparing to board a flight to Macau when he was approached by two women who rubbed poisonous liquid on his face.
Due to the inevitable strain that this puts on Malaysia’s relationship with North Korea, Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) sent in a request to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to either postpone the match and to pick a neutral venue.
Although the date has already been confirmed to be on the 8th of June, AFC has yet to announce a neutral venue for the match. According to Bernama, AFC secretary-general Windsor Paul has assured them that the venue will be announced by end of this week.
AFC also confirmed in a statement last month that the location will depend on the North Korean FA and their venue of choice.
While we wait on the confirmation on the neutral venue, what is more perplexing is the fact that Malaysia still does not have a national football head coach. We only have about a month-and-a-half to go before the 8th of June, and we face Lebanon five days later on the 13th of June for another international fixture.
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