KANGAR, Jan 17 — The crisis faced by the Perlis Football Association (PFA) has entered a new phase when the players who were not paid their salary threatened to lodge a complaint to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as their salary was deducted by RM300 each to pay the salary of the coach in March 2018.

They claimed that PFA deputy president, Mohd Abdul Karim Khan Mansor Ahmad Khan forced the salary of 18 players for the month to be deducted as the association did not have sufficient funds to pay the salary for the coach.

Team captain, Ezzrul Ikmanizar Abdul Rahman, 30, who made the disclosure said they had deliberately not exposed the matter much earlier as they wanted the issue on the nine-month salary arrears for the 27 players and staff of the PFA to be resolved in a friendly manner.

“As the PFA wanted to take legal action because we exposed their (the previous management’s) misconduct regarding the salary arrears to the media, so we will not hesitate to lodge a report with the MACC.

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“In fact, contributions to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) too had not been made since January last year before the issue on the salary arrears was exposed.” he told Bernama, here today.

According to Ezzrul Ikmanizar, the report to be lodged with the MACC aimed to get the agency to investigate the possibility that the association’s funds had been misappropriated because the players’ salaries were deducted although contributions to the EPF had not been made.

Yesterday, Mohd Abdul Karim Khan said in a statement that PFA planned to take legal action after the players exposed the issue of their salary arrears because they considered such acts as tarnishing the image of PFA.

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Ezzrul Ikmanizar refuted Mohd Abdul Karim Khan’s allegation that the players had breached discipline and described their fault as deliberately being raised to cover up the fault of the PFA.

“We will continue to claim our rights that had been denied because since we were not paid our salaries, we did odd jobs such as doing paint work, selling burger and becoming fishermen to continue to survive,” he added. — Bernama