Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 16, 2018 - July 22, 2018

Besides death and taxes, these are probably some of the remaining certainties in life (and football):

  1.      It always rains after you have just had your car washed.
  2.      Share prices will always go down after you buy.
  3.      Share prices will only go up after you sell.
  4.      Liverpool will never win the English Premier League.
  5.      Arsenal will never win the UEFA Champions League.
  6.      England will never win the Fifa World Cup again.
  7.      Malaysia will never qualify for the Fifa World Cup finals.

But having witnessed the world’s longest-ruling coalition lose the general election just two months ago, most Malaysians have perhaps realised that what seem to be certainties are not, after all.

In this regard, despite our national football team’s poor Fifa ranking, Malaysia’s dream of playing in the World Cup finals may actually come sooner than we think.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Yes, we may be able to qualify for the World Cup via the backdoor — by hosting the tournament here!

If Malaysia were the host, it could mean that our national team will have an automatic spot in the group stage without having to go through the qualifying rounds, similar to the privilege accorded to previous World Cup hosts.

In fact, Qatar, which will be hosting the 2022 World Cup, will be the first-ever host country that has never qualified for the tournament. But as host, it will automatically.

Realistically, with our Fifa world ranking of 171, this seems to be the only way, or rather, the easiest route to qualify for the World Cup.

But, of course, it is more sensible for Malaysia to co-host the biggest show on earth with our fellow Asean nations, including Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia.

One of the main reasons is that we simply do not have enough international football stadiums to hold the matches. And we can’t afford to have another stadium roof collapse, can we?

South Africa spent about US$4 billion on staging the World Cup in 2010 while Brazil spent about US$12 billion four years later.

If Malaysia could spend so much on mega infrastructure projects in the past, why not invest in infrastructure that could grant us automatic qualification for the World Cup?

The thing is, we can’t even build the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail at the moment, so how are we going to co-host the World Cup with Singapore?

Perhaps it’s time to set up a Tabung World Cup for Malaysians who want to express their national pride to contribute towards the hosting of the tournament. If we can recover the misappropriated money from 1Malaysia Development Bhd, it should be channelled into this fund.

Fortunately, we now have a young minister of youth and sports. I am sure he has ideas on how to rejuvenate Malaysian football. Maybe he could learn from the Japanese, given the country’s experience in co-hosting the World Cup with South Korea in 2002. After all, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is planning to reignite the Look East Policy.

The youth and sports minister was already seen emulating the Japanese football fans, who stayed behind to clean up stadiums after the matches. This is a good start.

To me, a Liverpool supporter, all I hope for is that my beloved football club breaks its duck before Malaysia hosts the World Cup for the first time.

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