KUALA LUMPUR: Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah expressed his condolences to the family of former Harimau Malaya coach B. Sathianathan, who died Tuesday (July 18).
The 33-year-old would happily have continued playing, but a lack of options meant the decision to wave farewell to his career as a professional footballer was very much taken for him.
Although there s no denying that the Covid-19 pandemic has gravely affected the finances of Malaysian clubs, that was not necessarily the main reason behind his early retirement. Sure, footballers aged 33, 34 like me can still play [at the top level] and if given the chance I d have continued playing, Fauzan told
Goal. But frankly, from what I ve seen in the past five years, players aged 30 and older have grown irrelevant. It s not like how it was, when clubs would look for these more senior players first, before they signed the younger players.