Sumareh's fate to be decided on Jan 16

Davies and Sumareh are both players with the Malaysia national team but only the former at this point in time is registered with Pahang for the domestic competitions under Malaysian Football League (MFL) as a local player with Sumareh still considered an import player.

Previously MFL have revealed that they have received Pahang's application to have Sumareh's status to be converted to a local player last year with the league governing body accepting the request on the condition that a one year grace period is met.

In a press statement released today by MFL, the chief executive officer Kevin Ramalingam went on to announce the latest update on the situation now that Pahang have submitted a follow-up appeal on the matter.

"PBNP sumitted an appeal letter dated November 27 2018 which was given to MFL on December 19 2018. The appeal needs to go through the Board of Directors before any decision is made.

"According to the regulations, any naturalised player can only be registered as a local player after five years of him receiving his citizenship. But we have given it due consideration to allow the time for Sumareh to be shorten to one year based on Pahang's registration request on March 2 2018 based on several aspects not least because Sumareh has been living in the country since he was 12 years old.

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"Hence on October 1 2018, the MFL board of directors have decided to allow Sumareh to be registered in the second transfer window in May 2019 by taking into account the one year period. After that decision, PBNP decided to appeal but this is not a case of MFL trying to delay the process.

"The rules are there for all to see but in this case, we might allow some leeway based on a few factors. However we must stressed that we cannot just straight give the clearance because we don't want teams to misuse this option," said Kevin.

A decision is now expected to be made of this appeal by January 16 2019 after the board has presided over the matter. Should Sumareh be allowed to convert to a local player in this first transfer window itself, it could open up an wider opportunity for The Elephants regarding their squad.

If the decision is positive for Pahang, Dollah Salleh could be looking to have an additional five import players instead of the past season with Sumareh and four import players. At this point in time, Pahang have only confirmed two spots with Safuwan Baharudin and Saddil Ramdani being the two imports signed thus far. 

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