THE Malaysian Football League (MFL) have had enough of being kicked around by the virus.
Instead of postponing their event yet again, MFL yesterday decided to go on with the Malaysia Cup despite the latest round of Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) that was announced on Monday.
The CMCO extension, enforced in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya, is from Oct 27-Nov 9. And it clashes with the opening rounds of the Malaysia Cup, scheduled to start on Nov 6.
However with the M-League having gone through several postponements due to the pandemic, the MFL are adamant the latest extension will have little bearing on their revised timeline.
The four CMCO-affected teams in the Malaysia Cup competition are Selangor, Petaling Jaya
City FC, UiTM FC and Kuala Lumpur.
MFL have decided that the show must go on, and embarked on a strategy that will allow them to "dribble past" the Covid-19 problem.
MFL chief executive officer Datuk Ghani Ab Hassan, looking at Selangor's ability to continue their training in a different location as a positive sign that the Malaysia Cup could go on.
He said the MFL will follow the Malaysia Cup scheduled fixtures but with a change: the four affected teams from the Klang Valley will play their matches away instead of at home.
"We do not foresee any further postponement of the competition at this point in time.
"We are confident that as long as we follow the requirements set out by the government, we should be able to proceed.
"As you can see, Selangor have gotten approval from the authorities to allow them to travel outside of the Klang Valley to continue their training during this period.
"As such, we do not expect to have any problems in complying with the requirements when these four teams apply to travel out from the CMCO zones to play their respective fixtures," said Ghani.
Because of Covid-19, this year's Malaysia Cup has been shortened, with the group stage replaced by a direct single match knockout.
The 16 teams will be separated into two pots with the top six teams from Super League and the top two from Premier League in Pot A, with the remaining teams in Pot B.
Johor Darul Ta'zim, who beat Kedah in last year's Malaysia Cup final, are likely to field a weakened team because of their involvement in the AFC Champions League which begins on Nov 19.