Can Harimau Malaya function with two centres of power?

The problem is not how the team is run. It is that two centres of power now exist over one national team.

The Asian Football Confederation’s recommendation to return Harimau Malaya fully under the Football Association of Malaysia exposes that split directly.

It is not a cosmetic adjustment. It challenges a decision that deliberately placed the national team outside full institutional control.

Once FAM created a parallel management structure, it no longer held a single line of command over its flagship team.

Harimau Malaya was moved into a separate operational setup in 2024 after years of frustration with results and administration inside FAM.

A new executive layer was introduced to run the national team more directly, with a dedicated management unit overseeing daily operations.

On paper, the aim was improvement. In practice, it created division.

FAM retained formal authority, but operational control shifted outward. That split produced two centres of influence over the same team: one responsible for direction, another for execution.

Once that happens, the chain of command stops being clear. Responsibility no longer follows authority in a straight line. It bends, overlaps and eventually diffuses.

Why AFC sees a structural risk

The AFC position is built on a simple governance principle. A national team must sit fully within the governing association.

When control is divided, accountability weakens. When accountability weakens, decision-making loses clarity.

Under the current arrangement, key questions become harder to answer. Who sets long-term direction? Who approves operational decisions? Who answers to congress when outcomes fall short?

FAM’s split structure created space between those answers. That space is now the concern.

The most important issue is not that Harimau Malaya has a management team. It is that FAM allowed that team to sit alongside its own authority rather than fully under it.

That choice effectively created two centres of decision-making for one national team.

What began as an attempt to improve performance ended up changing the internal balance of power.

It reduced the association’s direct control over its most visible asset while keeping ultimate responsibility inside the same organisation.

That mismatch is where governance breaks down. Authority moves outward, but accountability does not follow cleanly behind it.

Modern football governance is built on alignment. The body that controls a national team must also carry responsibility for it.

When that alignment breaks, systems become harder to supervise. Decisions spread across layers. Oversight becomes reactive instead of direct.

The AFC recommendation restores that principle. It pushes for one chain of command over one national team.

Not parallel structures. Not divided responsibility. One system.

Financial pressure and structural strain

The governance concerns sit alongside another pressure point highlighted in AFC findings.

Almost 70 per cent of FAM’s expenditure goes to staff costs and national team operations, leaving only about 30 per cent for development work.

It shows an organisation heavily weighted toward maintaining existing structures rather than building future capacity.

In that environment, adding parallel layers of management around the national team increases complexity rather than solving it.

It multiplies decision points but does not necessarily improve outcomes.

The current debate risks drifting toward personalities and appointments but that is not where the issue lies.

The AFC recommendation is structural. It does not question individuals. It questions design.

Even strong leadership cannot function effectively when authority is split and reporting lines are unclear. The system itself becomes the constraint.

That is why the focus remains on structure, not personnel.

It is FAM’s own decision to separate the national team from full institutional control that created a dual-centre model for Harimau Malaya. One centre manages operations. Another retains formal authority.

In governance terms, that is a structural contradiction. A single team cannot be effectively governed by two parallel centres of influence without confusion emerging.

And once confusion enters, accountability becomes harder to enforce consistently.

Why consolidation matters

Bringing Harimau Malaya back fully under FAM would not be a symbolic reversal. It would be a structural correction.

It would remove overlapping authority. It would restore a single chain of command. And it would clarify where responsibility sits when results are delivered or missed.

Most importantly, it would ensure that the organisation responsible for Malaysian football is also fully responsible for its most important team.

This is not a debate about whether a separate management model can produce short-term improvement.

It is a question of whether Malaysian football can sustain a structure where two centres of power govern one national team.

The AFC recommendation answers that question in one direction.

It argues for alignment, not division.

For one chain of authority, not two.

And for a system where responsibility is not shared across competing centres, but clearly located in one place.

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