KUALA NERUS – Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup 2022 runner-up Kuala Lumpur City FC (KL City) will need to spend more on players to compete for the title in next season’s Malaysian Football League (MFL).
KL City FC head coach Bojan Hodak said the team, which is based in the Klang Valley, has one of the smallest budgets for expenses, making it difficult for him to form the best team this season.
Those constraints, he said, caused The City Boys to go play important matches without the best eleven in most of the domestic league campaign this season.
“Our budget is one of the smallest in the league. Because of that, we have a problem with eleven...twelve players who are mostly young players.
“Some of them can play, some of them lack the experience to play in the league.
“This season was also quite long, especially with the AFC Cup competition involving lots of travelling. Some of the players were really tired by the end of the season,” he said when met after the second Malaysia Cup quarter-final match against Terengganu FC at the Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium last night.
The journey of the Croatia-born coach’s squad in the Malaysia Cup challenge this season came to a halt when they lost 1-4 on aggregate to Terengganu FC.
In the meantime, Hodak, who once coached the national youth squad, said he is likely to stay with KL City next season.
Accordingly, he expects a bigger budget to prepare a stronger team to face the challenge of the M-League next year.
“Last year we won the Malaysia Cup and this year we played in the AFC Cup final. But if we want to go for something bigger, we need to have a bigger team and a bigger budget. That is the one thing we will focus on next season,” he said. – Bernama, November 13, 2022
