6 most notorious Malaysian sports scandals of ALL TIME!

The alleged extracurricular adventures of Chelsea star and former England football captain John Terry are all over the papers, these days. Being patriotic citizens, it got us wondering whether Malaysia had any footie scandals to call her own. On twitter, @emuzko helpfully pointed out that:

"Msian football wud have to be notable enuf to warrant interest in any scandals they might have. At this rate? rather watch paint dry.."

Heh. But, because we are kiasu, we rooted around anyways. And, while limiting ourselves to football was the initial idea, we found 6 diverse general sports snafus that will give you a cringe or two.

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The 1994 football fixing scandal

Probably the biggest of them all, in terms of its effects on the Malaysian football scene. Following allegations of match fixing, between 1994 and 1995 nearly 100 players from Malaysian football suffered bans and exile. Singapore was expelled from the league; rising stars like Matlan Marjan and Azizol Abu Haniffah were stricken down.

(The was an international angle to this, too. The same year, Liverpool star Bruce David Grobbelaar was charged with conspiracy to corrupt, due to a match-fixing fiasco, along with other football players -- and a Malaysian businessman, Heng Suan Lim.) 

The credibility of Malaysian football was blown, and the sport has never recovered. It's a big factor in the "rather watch paint dry" sentiment, so strong today.

And, even then, Malaysian football still didn't learn. 5 Sarawak and 9 Police team players were detained in April 2008 for investigations. The allegation? Match fixing.

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Our football "win" at the 2009 SEA Games

Not a scandal per say -- but still embarrassing. In mid-December 2009, Southeast Asia waited with bated breath as the underdog Malaysia and Vietnam football teams made their unlikely way into the finals at the SEA Games in Laos.

Then, in the evening of 17 December, the news wires/Twitterverse went ablaze: we won!

Then we realised that our win was courtesy of Vietnam player Mai Xuan Hop's own goal in the 84th minute of the match.

Well, a win is still a win, right? Right?

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Kelantan football riots!

Kelantan football fans are the Brit-soccer-hooligan equivalent in these parts; rowdy behaviour is somewhat common. But the riot on 8 April 2009, after the state team lost a match to rivals from Negeri Sembilan, saw damaged public property, burning police cars, and numerous injuries. It resulted in a season-long home ban on Kelantan by the Football Association of Malaysia.

Interestingly, the most severe bodily harm was a lost eye, belonging to an 18-year-old, by way of shrapnel from a tear gas canister fired by the police.

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The Gomez Incident

In late 1992, a tiff that involved the Johor royal house, the state Hockey Association, and hockey coach Douglas Gomez, culminated in Sultan Mahmud Iskandar ibni Almarhum Ismail allegedly assaulting Gomez at his palace.

When the beatings came to light, the story outraged the Malaysian public. A special parliamentary session in December saw the Dewan Rakyat unanimously passing a resolution to curb the powers of the hereditary Sultans.

With royalty still wielding considerable socio-political influence in Malaysia today, the Incident's outcome reverbs to this day. Interestingly, few of the late Sultan Iskandar's obituaries mention it.

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C Ramanathan and his atheletes

In 1996, the sessions court sentenced former national athletics coach C Ramanathan to 4 years of prison for allegedly molesting 2 under-aged athletes between 23 and 27 October 1992. The athletes, who were 15 and 16 at the time, were attending centralised training for the Asian Junior Athletics Championship in New Delhi.

This case has dogged the man, now 73, since. As of December 2009, it has still not concluded.

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The Kuala Terengganu Stadium collapse

On 2 June 2009, the Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin stadium in Kuala Terengganu decided, on its own, to collapse spectacularly -- one year after it was built. The RM270 million structure's fall became a by-word for corruption and the fact that public money frequently ends up in the hands of inept contractors that happen to be political cronies.

Soon, agencies like the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee launched various investigations -- but it appears that, 9 months after the fact, little has come out of the investigations. Public scrutiny has also died.

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We admit that our sports-fu is a little weak. But, if our cursory survey of the Internets and recent memory has come up with these, surely you, dear and knowledge online hive-mind, can help beef up our list. So: any more Malaysian sports scandals, readers?