New Sabah Times
By FRANCIS XAVIER
KOTA KINABALU: A furious Tawau official yesterday claimed they have been robbed of a place in the semi-finals of the Safa Cup grand finals that is happening in the state capital here today.
He said the Sabah Football Association (Safa) is acting unprofessionally, insisting that they should have been one of the teams that will be playing in the semi-finals (today) if not for their unprofessional conduct in handling a protest that was brought against them by Kota Kinabalu for allegedly fielding an ineligible player.
The said official, Muhammad Azreen Amir, who is Tawau’s assistant team manager, said the organiser or rather Safa, have acted unprofessionally in handling the matter.
“We were kept in the dark on the whole incident until the very last minute. Until today, we have not received any official letter stating that we were deducted three points. And what really irked us most is that we were not represented in the (protest) meeting.
“In fact, we only knew about the decision during our last group match against Kota Belud. In that game, we were fielding our reserve team thinking that we had already qualified into the semi-finals after our win against Kota Marudu (3-1) and Kota Kinabalu (2-1).
“The worst part is, this morning (yesterday) when we wanted to submit our appeal, they refused to accept or listen. Instead, they verbally told us that they are sticking to their decision.
We were not given any room to hear our side of the story, which is very unfair.
“Furthermore, the player in question, Mohd Ramzi Mustamin, 19, is from Tawau, born in Tawau and studied at SMK Balung, Tawau before he pursued his studies at the Politeknik Kota Kinabalu,” said Muhammad Azreen.
For the record, Kota Kinabalu lodged their protest alleging that Mohd Ramzi, a goalkeeper, who hails from Balung, was an ineligible player, as he had played for Membakut in the zone level tournament, which is against the competition rules.
“All we know is he is our player. In the first place, it was the other team that should have been penalised because they registered our player without any release letter from Safa Tawau.
“The punishment that has been imposed on us is also very harsh and not stated in the competition rules or regulations.
We believe the point deduction doesn’t make any sense at all.
“If this is the case, I think the competition will not achieve its objective, as it is being run unprofessionally.
For the record, Tawau had won their Group B opening match, defeating Kota Marudu 3-1 before edging Kota Kinabalu 2-1 that was overturned (in their second game). They concluded their group challenge drawing 0-0 with Kota Belud.
With the seven points earned, they could have won the group, but no thanks to the protest from Kota Kinabalu, who in turn, won the group by virtue of being given a 3-0 win over Tawau on technical issue otherwise, Kota Kinabalu could have finished third behind Kota Belud, who have five points.
Kota Kinabalu earned one point from their drawn game against Kota Belud and won 5-1 in their final game against Kota Marudu.
