Where has the passion gone?

Malaysian football has slowly fallen out of the radar of interest of their local population. With more people owning Manchester united jerseys compared to Selangor jerseys, you know where the money is going.

Just when did the rot start? Was it the bribery that went on during the 90s? Was it when most of the local teams started parading almost fully Malay football units? in the 60s and 70s, we used to have multi racial teams, just look at a list of past great footballers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_national_football_team) of the nation - out of a group 22, there are 8 Malays, 8 Chinese, 5 Indians and 1 Samah. Compare that to the team selected to represent the team for the 2010 qualifiers. Only one Indian representative compared to the all Malay team.

Although I tend to support the Perak team, I detest some irresponsible supporters who smash opposition fans car windows or vandalise their transportation based on the number plates. Are these patterns on hooliganism brought from watching too much English football?

I remember back in the late nineties I actually followed a couple of games in Penang, when their stadium was still around Dato' Keramat Road. I particularly enjoyed the multi racial element of support that brought the fans together. Several things that we had to remember -

1) Always curse the opposition, (even the visiting Perak team)

2) Never drive to a match, get on your bikes and go, and

3) When you need to pee during halftime, join the rest of the people at the 'longest' public toilet in Penang.

With the mega marketing product called the English Premier League, I fear that our state and national teams support will slowly wither in time.