Johor Regent questions MFL’s U-turn on Selangor FC penalties for missing match against JDT

Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 — Johor Regent Tunku Ismail Ibrahim yesterday questioned the Malaysian Football League’s (MFL) decision to reduce the penalties against Selangor FC for missing the Charity Shield match against Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT) and for cancelling the former’s three-point deduction over the incident.

Tunku Ismail said that MFL had backtracked after Selangor Ruler Sultan Sharafudin Idris Shah Alhaj criticised its decision, even without an official appeal letter.

“Teams from every state that have done something wrong can all now ask MFL to withdraw their decision by seeking the good will of their respective Tuanku Sultan to issue a letter.

“MFL made a U-turn without receiving an appeal letter,” the Johor Regent said in a statement on Facebook yesterday.

As the owner of the JDT football club, he disclosed that the club has been fined hundreds of thousands of ringgit since 2013 and was once banned for six months, but the Johor Sultan never issued a letter nor made a statement that would make MFL retract its decisions.

The ban, which came with an RM18,000 fine, was for criticising the league’s referees, news site Free Malaysia Today reported yesterday.

JDT was also fined RM120,000 by the Football Association of Malaysia last year because its fans let off flares during football matches, national daily The Sun reported in July 2023.

In a statement yesterday, MFL said it used its discretionary powers to reconsider the decision made on June 24 over Selangor FC’s failure to play the match against JDT on May 10 and it said that the reconsideration was made as a gesture of respect and compliance with the decree by the Selangor Sultan.

The fine that was initially RM100,000 was reduced to RM60,000 and MFL also rescinded the order for the Selangor club to play its next home match against JDT in an empty stadium.

Nonetheless, Selangor FC will still have to compensate the MFL and JDT for commercial losses that resulted from its failure to play the Charity Shield match, which will be determined at a later time.

The club has three days from today to accept or contest this latest decision.

Two days ago, the Selangor Sultan criticised the MFL for imposing the penalty against the state team for sitting out the Charity Shield shortly after star player Faisal Halim suffered an acid attack that left him with severe injuries.

The sultan called the initial penalty “excessive” and “inhumane”, especially as JDT was awarded a walkover victory and the Charity Shield as a result.