PETALING JAYA, Sept 25 — The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) is worried that the independent professional referee management company proposed by Malaysia Football League (MFL) will open the floodgates to import referees into the country.

FAM Referee Committee chairman, Subkhiddin Salleh said FAM welcomed the initiative to improve the quality of refereeing in the Malaysia League but hoped it would not pave the way for foreign referees to enter the country.

"I agree if it was for the benefit of our football, we have no problem with that and we can cooperate. But I do not want it to be seen as a channel to bring in referees from outside to the extent it leads to the marginalisation of our own referees. This is our worry,” he told a media conference after the committee’s monthly meeting at Wisma FAM today.

MFL had earlier said it wanted to form an independent professional referee management company to raise the quality of refereeing in the M-League in future.

MFL said the idea of forming the company was based on a case study ‘Professional Game Match Officials Limited’ (PGMOL) which was used in refereeing several football leagues in the world. — Bernama