History of Malaysian Football

Football is the first sport brought from another country to the Malaya when British occupied the land between 1825. Later, few clubs has been established in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Perak, Johor and Negeri Sembilan. However in 1926, base of establishment of Football Association of Malaya (FAM) has been done before it became official as the main body on 1933.

In 1956, FAM became the member of the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) after becoming a member of Asian Football Confederate (AFC) in 1954. Later in 1960, FAM changed its name from Football Association of Malaya to Football Association of Malaysia.

Tunku Abdul Rahman which is the first Prime Minister of Malaysia has been chosen as the first FAM President in 1951 before taken over by Tun Abdul Razak Hussien for one year period in 1975.

FAM then led by Tan Sri Hamzah Abu Samah, former Minister of Industrial and Trading in 1976 until 1983 and in 1984, Sultan of Pahang, Sultan Ahmad Shah took charged the FAM until now.

NATIONAL SQUAD

Before Malaysia was formed, our national squad has been known as Malaya Squad and it is the team that feared by other Asian national squad. Malaya team has become the strongest team in Asian region in early 1950 which was the era of Datuk Ghani Minhat. The best achievements that Malaya team ever recorded in that time was winning the bronze medal in Asian Games 1962 in Jakarta, Indonesia after beating South Vietnam by 4-1.

After the establishment of Malaysia on 16 September 1963, this team has been known as the Malaysian Football Team. The success continued as Malaysia managed to qualify to the Olympic 1972 in Munich. Two years later, Malaysia repeated the achievement in 1962 after managed to get bronze medal in Asian Games 1974 in Tehran.

It was that time that we have a national football legend, late Datuk Mokhtar Dahari which has a record of 125 goals from 167 international caps. Mokhtar or popularly known as Supermokh began represent for Malaysia in Pestabola Merdeka 1972 before made a final appearances when Malaysia faced South Korea on Pre-World Cup competition in 1985.

However, for the national squad, a stunning record continued when Malaysia managed to qualify in Asian Cup for two times in 1976 and 1980. Then, once again Malaysia managed to booked a ticket to Olympic Games 1980 in Moscow but because of the Soviet Union invasion on Afghanistan, Malaysia has withdraw from the tournament in act of boycotting the Soviet Union act.

The success of national squad tainted in 1994 because of the largest corruption scandal involving many main players in national squad.