Safee is free to play abroad — FAM

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KUCHING: Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) assistant secretary general, Kelly Sathiraj yesterday refuted claims allegedly made by the ministry to disallow national striker, Safee Saili playing aboard.

Safee Saili

Sathiraj, when contacted said: “We never made an issue of not letting Safee to play for the Indonesian club. In fact, is it a prerogative of the two clubs (FA of Selangor and Persib Bandung) to discuss on the matter of his contract.”

He added that FAM had never stopped any national player to play for other teams outside Malaysia as their contracts are to be determined by their respective clubs.

“FAM does not issue any contract that binds the players unless the team is signing with the parent body like the Harimau Muda team, only then we will not allow them to play for any team outside Malaysia. For Safee’s case he is free to go and we all out to support him.”

He also revealed that there were some Malaysian players who did play with clubs outside Malaysia and FAM has no objection to it.

“We have Stanley Bernard from Kuala Lumpur who plays for an Indian club-Sporting Vigor and came back to play for Sabah. We’ve never encountered an issue with him.”

Sathiraj also denied on the statements allegedly made by certain quarters in the Sports Ministry saying that Safee and the rest of the Suzuki Cup champion squad maybe not allowed playing outside Malaysia.

An unknown official from the Sports Ministry claimed to have said that the ministry had plans to keep the team together in a bid to win a place to the London 2012 Olympic.

A local daily has reported to publish the difficulties faced by the U-23 to train and play the matches together as most of the players are contracted to play for their respective teams in the Super and Premier league.

“Even if any one of them is playing in the English Premier League or elsewhere in the world, we can always call or inform him for any national call-up.”

It was also reported that Malaysia do not have much time to bask on their glory as Malaysia are expected to face Pakistan in the first leg of round 1 Asia’s qualifying matches on Feb 23 in Kuala Lumpur.

On Sunday Bernama also reported that Safee is expected to be evaluated by Persib Bandung during the February transfer window.

Bernama also quoted on Persib Bandung media officer Irfan Suryadireja saying that, though nothing is concrete, Persib Bandung and Selangor are expected to face less hassle to sign Safee as Selangor and PErsib have forged a close understanding and relationship all these years.