The ink has only just dried in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and Japan Football Association (JFA) on Friday at the Prime Minister's office which is designed to use the expertise of Japan to help improve Malaysian football.
Recent times have seen Malaysia showing some form of improvement relative to the debacle that was Eduardo Vingada's time in charge of the national senior men's team. With the Under-23 also showing good potential, FAM are showing with this MoU that they are not resting on their laurels.
Dato' Haji Hamidin bin Haji Mohd Amin said after the 2019 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) congress that FAM intends to use the opportunity fully. A party is being planned to go on a learning trip to Japan that will also involve personnel from the Malaysian government.
Next Match
"I have discussed with the Japan FA president, my exco as well as the Sports Minister that in a month or two, we will have a FAM retreat to Japan with all the components. This program for this retreat will be organised by Japan on how they have gone from being behind Malaysia in the 80's to now the giant of Asian football.
FAM
"There we will evaluate which we can take on board. Maybe on the youth, coaches or women's football. But everything will be on the outcome of the retreat. Syed Saddiq also agrees to be on the trip because we believe that the government must be with FAM because we want to go further on the international, Japan is one of the model to follow," said Hamidin on Saturday.
On Saturday, Hamidin was elected as one of three Asean representative in AFC during the 29th AFC Congress held in Kuala Lumpur. He was joined by Australia's Chris Nikou and Vietnam's Tranc Quoc Tan in successfully earning a place in the executive committee after Singapore's Winston Lee pulled out of contention.
Hamidin was also nominated for the AFC Vice-President position by he had previously announced his decision to not contest that role to give way for Myanmar's Zaw Zaw to take up the position. Coming hot after his win at the Asean Football Federation (AFF) congress recently where he was elected as AFF Vice President, Hamidin is looking forward to use the role to help improve the country's game.
“Once again this is an honour for FAM and Malaysia. We know that Malaysia have many previous leaders in the game and I hope that with this role, I hope that we can improve the football in the country and that is the ultimate goal," he added.
Follow Goal Malaysia on Instagram