The story behind Annuar Musa’s football crisis

Annuar Musa paid a high price for the football crisis in the Football Association of Malaysia. He was thrown out from the third most important post in the FAM and banned from having anything to do with the game for the next two-and-a-half years.

Annuar’s football crisis is not only about football management, but also involves his ethics and attitude towards the FAM president, who sits on the throne on one of the states.

In his political career, Annuar always tried to portray himself as one who is not cowed by royalty. It would be going a bit too far if I were to presume that he is a republican. A republican is not really acceptable to Malay values, which have always been associated with a King or royalty.

It's hard for a Malay politician when he commits a misconduct against royalty or those close to them. He will be labelled a traitor and so forth. It is easy in Malay politics to label someone who dislikes the royals as a traitor. This is cheap politics.

Not subservient but not a Republican

Annuar has his own reasons for his refusal to have any ties with the royal family. His early political career was promoted by Tengku Razaleigh, who was then the respected Umno leader in Kelantan. Ku Li was not only respected as an Umno leader, but the Umno leaders themselves looked up to Ku Li because he was a member of the royal family with close relationship to the heir of the throne.

Differences of opinion with Ku Li were considered not only as differences between party colleagues but as affecting ties with the Palace. That is how strong the belief of the Malays towards their sultan can be, as can be seen in certain individuals in Selangor currently.

Annuar, after climbing to the peak of the state Umno hierarchy, began to free himself from the coat-tails of the prince who was once so powerful in Umno Kelantan. With Annuar as the chief of Kelantan Umno, Ku Li found himself isolated and influential only in Gua Musang per se.

Though Ku Li was his mentor, Annuar was the main weapon used to destroy the prince as one of Umno's most important leaders. One of Annuar's gross misconduct was to declare Tengku Ibrahim Petra, the cousin of Sultan Ismail Petra, as the Sultan of Kelantan when Sultan Ismail was still holding the throne.

Yet, Annuar was not called a traitor but became one who was seen as having a free mind and kept a proper distance from the royal house. His relationship with the royals may not be close, but Annuar can never be labelled as republican. If he is, he would not receive his 'Tan Sri' or be allowed to sit on any board or organisation where the Sultan is the head.

Hard to criticize or challenge the decisions and performance of the FAM president

As a Malay who accepts the Sultan, he was willing to accept the leadership of FAM which was then presided over by the Sultan Pahang. Since the Sultan was the president, the relationship between the FAM leaders and their head was like between a Ruler and his subjects.

If the Sultan felt like offering his service, no one could challenge or compete with him for that job or task. Although the FAM may say it practices democracy, their leaders pledge their loyalty to their president as though they are pledging their loyalty as subjects to the king.

If no leader talked about internal problems caused by the discipline in the organization, this was due to the Malay attitude of subservience towards the King.

Maybe Annuar's nature cannot be bogged down by these strict rules. He is not bound by these ethics which are like flesh and blood to some Malays.

It has given rise to various presumptions as to why Annuar chose to criticize developments involving football directly, while indirectly criticizing the leadership of Sultan Ahmad Shah, even though we understand that Annuar is not one to be bogged down by such protocols.

In the end, he had to face the consequences of what he believed in and for practicing democracy as he understood it and believed it to be. - Harakahdaily

Translated by Fashilah Ahmad, Malaysia Chronicle