KUALA LUMPUR: The National Sports Council (NSC) needs to hold a series of discussions with the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) before deciding on the best way to use the RM15 million allocation that was announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim under Budget 2025 on Friday (Oct 18).
NSC director-general Abdul Rashid Yaakub said such discussions were crucial to ensure optimum usage of the funds for the development of football in the country.
“We have met FAM but we still need to hold more discussions to finalise what is needed or the best way for us to use the RM15 million allocation.
“It’s not like we meet once and everything is settled. It’s a process where we need to discuss until we come to the best conclusion on how to govern the money,” he told reporters after the 2024 Women in Sports National Seminar near here today.
Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh had previously said that the RM15 million allocated to the Harimau Malaya, Under-18 and Under-13 squads could not be arbitrarily spent nor be used for salary payments.
Hannah said the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) would monitor the usage of the allocation to FAM to ensure the fund is only utilised by the coaches to enhance the teams’ performance and not for anything else.
Speaking about the seminar, Abdul Rashid said it is aimed at raising awareness about women’s role in sports, in addition to promoting gender equality in sports.
“We are happy because recently, at the Olympics, we saw a 50-50 participation of male and female athletes. So, we can see that more women are involved in sports,” she siad.
