Ab Ghani Hassan elected FAM president, and the empty committee is filled

FAM has a president again. Dato’ Ab Ghani Hassan was elected to lead the association for the rest of the 2025-2029 term at its second extraordinary congress, held at a hotel in Petaling Jaya on Thursday. FAM posted his name the following morning.

How the room voted

Ab Ghani beat Dato’ Sri Shahril Mokhtar by 20 votes to 5. Datuk Seri Haji Rosmadi Haji Ismail took the first vice-presidency with 15 votes out of a three-way race, and Datuk Saaran Nadarajah the third with 18. The second vice-presidency is not contested at all — it belongs automatically to the president of MFL.

Seven committee seats were filled across four categories: three for the state associations, two for the clubs, one for the professional bodies and one for the women’s category. The widest margin of the day went to Dato’ Zainal Abidin Hassan, elected to the professional seat with 22 votes to three.

Why the seats were empty

The whole committee for this term resigned collectively in January, and the association has been run since by its secretariat under general secretary Datuk Noor Azman Rahman.

So Thursday closed a caretaker arrangement that had lasted most of a year, at a body that turned 100 this month. Whatever else the new committee is, it is the first elected one since.

The in-tray

It inherits a national team already packing. Harimau Malaya open camp on 21 September and fly to Jakarta the next day for the FIFA ASEAN Cup, where the group also holds hosts Indonesia, Singapore and Bangladesh.

The squad that travels was named the same day as the congress, by an interim head coach, Tan Cheng Hoe. A permanent appointment is one of the first questions on the new committee’s desk, and it has a tournament to get through before it can answer.

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• Harimau Malaya’s FIFA ASEAN Cup schedule: Bangladesh, Indonesia and Singapore in Group A