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SCMP Reporter

AFTER a tumultuous 1994 season, the Malaysia-based M League is close to finishing with 10 teams now in the final stages of playing the Malaysia Cup competition.

  But even this tournament has been shaken by the continuing fallout from the various match-fixing scandals that have shaped the public perception of this season.

  This season's news highlights include a FIFA referee being jailed, a top expatriate striker jumping bail and fleeing to Europe and one of Malaysia's best defenders being shipped home in the middle of the Asian Games to face anti-corruption officers.

  The thread that united all of these separate incidents was an increasing revulsion on the part of loyal soccer fans to the inescapable fact that match-fixing had reduced the national sport to a game of charades.

  But the league season is now over and Singapore have been hastily confirmed by the Football Association of Malaysia as champions despite pending criminal charges which allege that their key striker Michael Vana proferred over (HK$30,000) to opponents to fix matches.

  You get the sense that soccer officials in Malaysia offered a collective sigh of relief once the league finished.

  'Let's be sure to turn over a new page for next season,' the soccer officials would have chummily said to one another while making plans to go fishing or golfing for the off-season.

  Unfortunately their season-long headache will not go away so quickly thanks to a rather short-sighted piece of officialdom.

  The Malaysia Cup, like all good cup competitions, is the pinnacle of the football season. But unlike the English FA Cup, Malaysia Cup games do not overlap the league season, so the games are played with passion for sure, but also in a sort of end-of-season holiday atmosphere as well.

  You can imagine after an excruciating league season choked with scandal, innuendo, greed and bitterness how much Malaysia's soccer-mad public were looking forward to putting their feet up for some good earthy cup action.

  That's not how it's going to be, said the Football Association of Malaysia at the beginning of the week.

  Because of dwindling gate numbers, caused no doubt by fans' revulsion at the match-fixing scandals, the FAM decided to spike the fans' last-remaining chance for some good soccer action: a complete live telecast ban on all Malaysia Cup games.

  The fans reacted with absolute fury, of course, and the telephone lines at the FAM and the local broadcast TV station were jammed as fans gave them what was no doubt a colourful piece of their mind.

  Although the specific gate details will not be announced until the end of the season, there was an indication this week of how bad the problem was.

  The province of Pahang once boasted one of the M-League's original glamour teams. But since winning the league and cup double in 1992, the team has fallen on hard times.

  And how they have! The Straits Times reported this week at a league match between Pahang and Brunei, Pahang players received winning bonuses of only HK$8 per player after thumping Brunei 4-0.

  All of this is a far cry from the grateful Saudi Royal Family, protectors and patrician guardians of Saudi soccer.

  After Saudi Arabia won the Gulf Cup for the first time last week, Prince al-Waleed bin Talal al-Saud gave the kingdom's top 37 players a Chevrolet limousine each.



TV cut-off final insult to supporters