The feud keeps flaring, doesn’t it?
Tunku Ismail ibni Sultan Ibrahim has publicly challenged Youth and Sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin as well as his backers to a public debate, suggesting that ASTRO should broadcast it to the entire country.
Speaking through the Johor Southern Tigers’ Facebook page, Tunku Ismail said: “I urge ASTRO, to put YB Khairy, a representative from FAM, Dato Ong Kim Swee, Lim Teong Kim, Sathia and myself on live television to talk about who’s responsible for the poor performance of our national team and Malaysian football and what courses of action to take. Also in this program, they should allow the fans to voice out their opinions and ask any questions they want.”
This comes in the aftermath of his recent criticism of Khairy Jamaluddin, after the Minister publicly proclaimed that the existing pool of national players aren’t good enough. TMJ’s response went viral all over the internet, but Khairy was defended pretty quickly, as Ong Kim Swee and B. Sathianathan both echoed his sentiments.
But TMJ has now raised the stakes by claiming that KJ and his backers are merely covering up for the failures of a system that’s inefficient.
“Look, I agree that they lack quality. But my statement was who’s at fault? I’m a military man and I’m trained to be responsible. If any of our soldiers are not fit to carry out their duties, who’s fault is that? It is our fault. Which means that we have the wrong system in place and we don’t train them well. We should be responsible. In these circumstances, the soldiers should not be blamed. It’s always the instructors. Same goes with football palyers. They are not wrong.
“I’m surprised that FAM and other affiliates are not interested to fix the problem by having a meeting when we already know what the problem is. That’s why in my statement I said no one really cares about Malaysian football except for me. Whether you like it or not I will continue to fight against any corrupted regime. You should stand together and demand changes. You can’t change something when you don’t know what’s the problem. That’s why I say the best way is to put me on live television so the whole country can know what is the actual problem. Enough with the cover up. Be transparent,” he concluded.
More to come…
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