One of Malaysia's top football clubs has pulled out of Friday's season-opening Foundation Safeguard after a spate of attacks, including a corrosive assault, on players in the country. Selangor FC said they wouldn't play in the show-stopper shade raiser against Malaysian Super Association champions Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) at the Ruler Ibrahim Arena in Iskandar Puteri, southern Johor state. The choice followed a third attack against a player in the previous week when Johor's previous Malaysia captain Safiq Rahim was undermined with a mallet and had his vehicle windscreen crushed by two aggressors.
Safiq was not harmed in the assault, which occurred late Tuesday in Johor state following an instructional course with JDT, one of Asia's top clubs show to the crown ruler of the Johor regal family. Malaysia winger Faisal Halim is in concentrated care with severe singeing subsequent to being sprinkled with corrosive at the end of the week outside the capital Kuala Lumpur. His colleague Akhyar Rashid was harmed in a burglary outside his home in the eastern province of Terengganu last week.
"After much pondering and definite conversation with different gatherings the club has hesitantly chosen to pass on the 2024 Cause Cup match," Selangor, the 2023 Super Association other participants, said in a club explanation gave late Wednesday. It refered to "a progression of criminal episodes and ongoing dangers implying a few players and group authorities inside only 72 hours". The club added: "The security of the group is of most extreme significance and we treat all types of viciousness and dangers in a serious way".
Selangor FC had before asked the Malaysian Football Association to defer Friday's match. Stuart Ramalingam, CEO of the Malaysian Football Association, was asked by AFP on Thursday assuming the game was presently off. "Indeed, reasonable since Selangor has affirmed they will not join in," he said. Football Relationship of Malaysia president Hamidin Mohamad Amin on Tuesday encouraged high-profile footballers to avoid potential risk about their security, including recruiting guardians. Specialists presently can't seem to lay out any thought processes in the assaults, the first since the arrangement of the country's expert association a long time back.