KUALA LUMPUR – Any football teams that decide to withdraw from the Super League will not be replaced with teams from the M3 League, said Malaysian Football League (MFL) chief executive officer Stuart Ramalingam.
He explained that clubs from the third-level football league could not simply be promoted to the professional football division to maintain the tournament’s standard.
“We are not the type of league where amateur clubs can simply participate because this is a professional league, and we need to maintain the stability of competing teams.
“It is up to the clubs if they want to withdraw, but we need to maintain the standard of the Super League with more stable clubs in the tournament,” he said.
Stuart was met at the press conference after launching the Malaysia Cup postage stamp collection in collaboration with Pos Malaysia Bhd today.
The special edition stamp collection paid homage to the participating MFL clubs and showcased selected players in the 2022 Malaysia Cup.
Stuart’s comment came after rumours that PJ City FC will most likely withdraw from the Super League next season.
However, he said MFL have not received any official confirmation about the team’s withdrawal despite having met with them last week.
“For the time being, I have not received any information about their withdrawal from Super League but in my discussion with their CEO last week, they said they will continue to stay.
“I cannot make any comments until I receive the official letter from PJ City.”
There have been reports that PJ City will withdraw from the Super League next season due to lack of funding as current owners were looking to sell the club, but its chief executive officer S. Ganesh has denied those rumours.
Stuart also noted that MFL has no issues running the league with only 15 teams as it is only a matter of changing the match format.
Another team that is rumoured to withdraw is UiTM FC, but MFL has not received the official confirmation.
“We are communicating with all teams. We hope they will confirm their participation before the end of December.” – The Vibes, November 8, 2022