SHAH ALAM: Football Malaysia Limited Liability Partnership (FMLLP) will introduce a new competition, the ‘Challenge Cup’ for teams that do not qualify for the Malaysia Cup next season.
FMLLP chief executive officer, Kevin Ramalingam confirmed that the competition has been created as a means of further improvement after the Malaysia Cup has returned to being a competition on its own, separated from next season’s league action, so the new competition will fill the void spaces in the local footballing calendar.
“After looking closely at the new Malaysia Cup format used over the last two seasons, we found that there was space where the three last matches have long intervals from one match to the next.
“Therefore, we noticed that there was a need to make further improvements, so we returned to the original Malaysia Cup format and are introducing a new competition for eight teams that do not qualify for the Malaysia Cup to ensure that these teams remain in action throughout the season.
“However, we are still ironing out the finer details of the competition mechanism and most likely teams that are get eliminated early on from Malaysia Cup competition will also take part in the new competition,” he said when met after the 2018 M-League briefing for teams here earlier today.
Yesterday, it was made known that the Malaysia Cup will return to being a competition on its own as it will be held outside of next season’s league competition after being carried out concurrently with the League for two seasons.
This means that the new competition format used last year and this year will no longer be implemented and qualification for the Malaysia Cup for all teams will be determined by the teams positions when the Super League and Premier League draws to a close.
Based in the format last year and this year, the qualification for 16 teams was determined by the top 11 teams in the Super League and the top five teams from the Premier League after the end of the first round.
At the same time, Kevin explained that the ‘Challenge Cup’ will see teams playing more matches which will aid in not just developing and exposing the team, but all their players as well.
“One of the main reasons we have introduced such a competition is to increase the number of matches played because if teams play 22 matches all season, it is not such a healthy and productive situation for the teams involved.
“So, we are targeting to reach at least more than 30 matches for each team in a season and even though league competition would have ended with teams having not qualified for the Malaysia Cup, such teams can still be a part of competitive action because the ‘Challenge Cup will be held simultaneously with the Malaysia Cup,” he said.