SPORTS MINISTER Khairy Jamaluddin has urged the authorities to act tough on troublemakers in Malaysian football and warned there is no place for sports hooliganism in this country.
Khairy expressed his concerns following the ugly clash between Pahang and Darul Takzim fans at the Darul Makmur Stadium after a Super League tie last Friday, which left several fans hurt.
“It looks like there’s a group of thugs – trying to emulate the hooligans in the United Kingdom in the 1980s – emerging in local football recently,” said Khairy after launching the ‘ISN-UPM Sports Science Governed Sports Leadership Empowerment Series’ at National Sports Institute (NSI) in Bukit Jalil today.
“While the hooligans in UK are influenced by alcohol, our very own hooligans don’t even need to be drunk to act like one.
“It has to be stopped now at all costs. We cannot allow our stadiums to be taken over by hooligans.
“Football is a family sport and nowadays many parents bring their children along to watch matches, so their safety should not be jeopardised because of a small group of thugs.”
Khairy suggested for the upcoming matches, FAM should work closely with the authorities to have better security force presence at matches that are identified to have high potential of hooliganism threat.
He added if the need arises to make arrests, then there should not be any hesitancy on their part to do so.
“We’re aware there are only a few teams who have hooligans threat, not all the teams,” said Khairy.
“So for matches involving these teams, the security level must be increased.
“We are worried about the ‘psychology’ crowd, it’s very dangerous. Some fans are not hooligans, but when it comes to uncontrollable circumstances, they might eventually be drawn to be part of them.
“And we certainly don’t want that to happen.”
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