In The Ring > The Beautiful Game

UNTIL last weekend, many must have asked what drives a grown man with a job that starts at 8.30am and kids that need to be sent to school by 7.30am to stay glued to the television until 4.30am, watching 22 European men kick a ball.

And why, even after all this, they still spend their lunch arguing and exchanging notes about the same game? The answer can be epitomised in three words, The Beautiful Game. Or, if you want to add Latin flavour to the description, Joga Bonito. Unless you eat, drink and sleep football, the mystery surrounding the passion for the game may never be unravelled.

Football is not so much a sport as it is a way of life.

As an illustration of the reach and magnitude of the sport, the 2006 FIFA World Cup had a total cumulative television audience of 26.29 billion. The final match between Italy and France alone drew 715.1 million viewers!

Football is big business and does not recognise sovereign borders. Manchester United, the richest club in the world, was valued at approximately £786 million (more than RM5 billion) by Forbes in 2007.

The club has approximately 75 million fans worldwide, more than half from the Asian continent.

Former powerhouses like Liverpool and Everton also command strong support from loyal nostalgic fans.

Football is also personal.

It has the ability to empower and involve. In the space of 90 minutes, everyone is a pundit and everyone is a brilliant football technician.

We see ourselves in football in many different lights, sometimes as coach, other times as the owner and many times as the player.

I doubt if any one fan can paint all the attributes football possesses. The subjective allure of football is never exhaustive. To me, it is meritocracy in its purest form. It does not recognise creed or race, it only recognises ability.

This was best illustrated by the multi-racial French national team of 1998 that overcame the trials and tribulations to succeed in winning the World Cup when every other French team had failed.

The racial barriers that have long been the black hole of the sport are also slowly being taken apart.

For example, the “Football Unites, Racism Divides'project which was started more than a decade ago by a group of Sheffield United fans who were concerned about a number of incidents of racist abuse both in and around the stadium, is gaining momentum.

More than any other political ideology, football unites countrymen.

Can anyone forget the Korean chant “Dae Han Min Guk'(loosely translated to mean 'great republic of Korea ') now immortalised as the theme for World Cup 2002? Brazil might have taken the trophy to Rio, but we know the real winners of that competition were the Korean fans.

In the context of Malaysian football, we are consistently reminded that we hit our peak in qualifying for the 1972 Munich Olympics.

We qualified again in 1980, but due to politics, Malaysia did not participate.

For this generation, the legend that represented the golden era, Mokhtar Dahari, exists only in stories.

But a few months back, my brother-in-law alerted me to a Youtube video that showed a wonder goal that Mokhtar Dahari scored.

That the goal was stupendous is a given, but what converted me to a diehard fan was the look on his face as he celebrated his goal.

The sheer joy etched on his face showed what the goal for his country meant to the legend.

Our prayers are that the transformed FAM administration will bring us back to such lofty heights, to give this generation its own Malaysian chant.

Yes, Malaysian football has its fair share of hurt.

Many still remember the bribery, the bookies, the indiscipline that have eclipsed the success stories and plagued the local game. Thus, the natural question is what hope is there for Malaysian football? Ultimately, football is a universal language about shared ideals, values, hope and passion. More than this, it is about believing in dreams.

I am going to continue dreaming because at the end of the day, dreaming is easy when it's a beautiful game.