Ministry mulls overseas stints for ‘golden’ U-23s

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KUALA LUMPUR: Ministry of Youth and Sports plans to send the national Under-23 football team, which won the gold medal at last December’s Laos SEA Games, for overseas training stints in the future.Its minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said he would discuss the prospect with clubs in England during his visit next week.

“If the discussions with the clubs are successful, it will provide local players a very good opportunity to enhance their skills,” he told reporters after discussing the matter with Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) deputy president Datuk Seri Redzuan Sheikh Ahmad here yesterday.

Shabery said African countries had used a similar approach and placed their players in clubs from countries like France and England right from the academy level.

“The result has been good and when the time comes, they are called back to beef up their national team,” he said.

Shabery said discussions would also be held with teams that involved their players, to avoid any problems when they are identified for such stints.

“I feel the future of the national U-23 players should not be sacrificed for the sake of representing their states or clubs.

“We are also ready to help FAM financially because this (money) seems to be the main obstacle when carrying out such programmes,” he said.

However, for the time being the U-23 players can represent their respective teams in the M-League when the new season starts on Saturday.

Shabery had earlier suggested that the U-23 squad, which ended a 20-year wait to win gold from football at the SEA Games, be retained for centralised training instead of  returning to their respective teams.

The proposal was  however shot down by FAM, claiming it was too late because most of the players had already signed up for their respective teams to play in the M-League. —  Bernama