In order to achieve success based on vision and design rather than on luck some major changes have to take place in Malaysian football. Not everybody likes change though! Change makes us feel uncomfortable and by nature we don’t want to be uncomfortable. We want to stay where we are and keep what we have.
Change also often means loss of face for certain people or people are afraid they might lose control. It will definitely means more work for all of us. By nature these are things that we are afraid of.
That is why change always should be driven from the absolute top of an organization and that’s exactly the reason why I decided to accept this job as FAM Technical Director a few months ago.
After meeting FAM President, HRH Major General Tunku Ismail Ibni Sultan Ibrahim, The Crown Prince of Johor earlier this year I realized that he has the vision, authority, determination and courage that is required to drive this process of change successfully.
I thought to myself if there ever is a chance to build on a bright future for Football in this country, it will be right now.
It is going to take time though. Countries that had recent success in terms of results and or developing top players like Germany and Belgium for instance; started making fundamental changes at least 10 year before that. These countries already had the infrastructure and coaches; they only implemented a nationwide uniform way of playing and developing young players. We have to do much more than just that!
I think it is important that before we start judging and critizing people; we realize that.
It would be a massive missed opportunity for football in this country, if the one person that can drive these fundamental and neccesary change from the top, would walk away from it now. Walking away from a job that already took a lot of courage to take on in the first place, it would have been so much easier to stay in Johor and serve the people that love him.
Especially in Football we tend to make judgements based on emotion, but a lot of decisions in life made based on emotion are often regretted the next day. Let us all judge a little bit more rationally and with reason; so we will not regret in the near future that we have missed a rare opportunity to start building towards a bright future for Malaysian Football.
Peter de Roo
FAM Technical Director
