KUALA LUMPUR – Will the RM32 million invested in its recent partnership be a total waste for the Malaysian Football League (MFL)?
Just last December, the MFL and newly-appointed production partner, SpaceLabs Technologies Sdn Bhd, had inked a 3-year deal worth RM32 million after the football body cut ties with its previous production company, IDEAL Systems Sdn Bhd.
After further investigation by The Vibes into the partnership deal, many football experts voiced their concern with the MFL for taking such an unnecessary risk with a newcomer devoid of any strong credentials.
Last weekend proved the football experts right when hiccups emerged during the ‘live’ telecast of numerous M-League matches.
Apart from the Charity Shield match between Johor Darul Ta’azim and Kedah last Friday, there were issues with five of the six matches that were broadcasted over the weekend, according to a source.
The source added that this was why some experts suggested that MFL appoint a seasoned production company for the job, one that was familiar with the production of ‘live’ sporting events.
“These were all amateur slip-ups and MFL should take responsibility and address the situation. MFL and SpaceLabs need to assure football fans that such mishaps will not happen in the future. Until now, there has been no statement issued from both parties with regards to this.”
The MFL and SpaceLabs had borne the brunt of it after they were slammed by disapproving football fans on Twitter.
Another well-informed source on the matter told The Vibes that the MFL, SpaceLabs and TM Malaysia had a post-mortem on Monday to rectify the problems that had taken place during the football matches.
Since SpaceLabs was new to Malaysian football, the source said that occurrence of such issues was expected but went on to say that things would get better with the following games.
“Everyone must understand that since we are facing a pandemic, most of the work is done remotely and as such, glitches are a real possibility.
“As there is a full season ahead, let’s wait and see what happens. Give SpaceLabs an opportunity to improve,” the source said.
On the other hand, TM told The Vibes after being contacted that were assured by MFL that all the issues encountered over the weekend would be rectified before the next series of games.
However, SpaceLabs’ production work for yesterday’s matches did go well with the exception of internal issues, such as an audio mix-up with the match recordings.
It was believed that the production for these matches was done in the stadium and not remotely as per the previous coverage.
Apparently, SpaceLabs did not want to take the risk again, so they deployed all their team members to go onsite to orchestrate the production. – The Vibes, 10 March, 2021
