Never far from Controversies

By: Pohui
Special to Soccer City FC

I can't recall when was the last time the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Championship, or known as the "AFF Suzuki Cup", was free from any controversy.

In 1998, both Indonesia and Thailand knew that the winners of their game would face hosts Vietnam, who would be backed by the partisan Hanoi crowds, in the semi-finals, while the losing team would face a then weaker Singapore team.

To avoid the fuss of moving training camps from Ho Chi Minh City (located in the south) to Hanoi (in the north) for the semi-final, both the Indonesians and Thais staged a "dramatic" match that saw Indonesian defender Mursyid Effendi deliberately kick the ball into his own goal, despite the Thai's attempts to stop him doing so, thus handing Thailand a 3-2 victory.

Subsequently, Mursyid was banned for life from the game with both the Indonesians and Thais being fined by the organizers (the AFF - Asean Football Federation) for such "unsporting" conduct.

Rather "quiet" 2000 and 2002 editions of this premier South East Asian football tournament concluded with Thailand beating Indonesia twice on the occasions to clinch the title (coincident eh?).

However, it wasn't long before ugly head of the controversies made their return to the tournament, which used to be known as "Tiger Cup" in its early years, in 2004.

I was at the Singapore's National Stadium on that wet Sunday night when Singapore took on Myanmar in the returning leg of the semi-final.

The stakes were high as the Lions (Singapore's moniker) were holding on a wafer-thin solitary goal advantage, and on a muddy wet surface it wasn't surprise to see both teams struggled on the field.

Everything seems to be over for the hosts when the visitors took a two-goal lead to overturn the deficit and as clock was ticking away, Noh Alam Shah rose high to head home to pull one back for Singapore and sent the match to extra time.

The next thing I knew troubles begun to sprout up not only on the field, where one Myanmarese player turned aggressive and hurled a water bottle at one of the Singapore defenders S Subramani, but on the stands as well.

As rival fans started to exchange angry words, physical contacts occurred as some pockets of the supporters were involved in some pushing and shoving (an umbrella belonging to a friend of my was used as a weapon!), and one supporter even jumped down from the stands as he tried to invade the pitch.

Following the fiasco, both Singapore and Myanmar were chastised by the organizing committee over this incident.

The soon-to-be-demolished National Stadium was the venue for another controversial incident when Singapore hosted Thailand in the first-leg of the 2007 final, amid the political tensions between the two countries then.

This time round, it was the Thais that staged a "walk-out" after they felt the referee had wrongly awarded the penalty against them after an infringement was committed in the box. The stand-off lasted for more than 10 minutes before the game restarted with Fahrudin Mustafic duly converted from the spot to give Singapore their first victory over Thailand on home soils in 30 years.

As what a commentator joked on the previous night's live telecast of the match between Singapore and Myanmar in the Suzuki Cup Group A fixture, "Singapore seems to be always in this "walk-out" controversy" when the Myanmarese staged a "walk-out" after Singapore scored their third goal in a bizarre fashion.

Vietnamese referee Phung Dinh Dung was the man of that moment when he allowed Singapore to restart the game with a free-kick quickly taken that caught the Myanmar players unaware (whom they thought the referee would only restart the game after the injured Singapore player had given treatment to his injury) and allowed Nigerian-born striker Agu Casmir to score his second of the night,

Tempers flared and saw Myanmarese 'keeper Aung Aung Oo deservedly sent off for push the referee in the commotion following Agu's goal.

All eyes are on the organizing committee on what tough punishment is going to be handed out to Myanmar, although based on the past records, many football watchers in the region wouldn't be surprise a "stern" warning will be given as a deterrent.

Last but not least, Malaysia complained about the decision by the AFF to switch the venue of their next match from Phuket to Bangkok, which Malaysian coach B. Sathianathan was quoted in a Malaysian daily, "AFF must think of players and not just sponsors or broadcasters as they are the performers, and coaches put their act together."

"Players need rest to recuperate and they can't do that by staying at the airport and waiting for the plane," he said.

The decision for the switch is because Phuket does not have another suitable venue besides the Sarakul Stadium, which will stage the match between Vietnam and Laos, hence therefore the switch is inevitable.

The ironic is that Bangkok was actually slated for the Group B group matches but due to the political uncertainly then, AFF hastily move the tournament south to Phuket.

I guess it's still a long way to go for the organizers to get their acts together, probably they should engage someone from the "flaw-less" Beijing Olympics committee as an advisor?