By: GL Oh
KOTA KINABALU: KDM Telupid beat KDM Sepanggar 5-4 on penalties in a rain-shortened final of this season’s KDM Football League tournament at the Penampang Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The match was temporally stopped by match officials after only 21 minutes of play due to heavy downpour when the score stood at 0-0. It was resumed about 45 minutes later and ex-State striker Jufrey Omopor finally broke the deadlock with a close range finish in the 30th minute. However, Telupid’s lead was only shortlived as Yuhenrdry Rusdin equalised for Sepanggar five minutes later.
The second half saw both sides creating several scoring chances and the best came from Sepanggar when Saddam Yusup saw his goal-bound shot from a bicycle kick cleared off the line. Telupid were also reduced to 10-man in the 17th minute after Farid Saibun was shown his second yellow of the match. However, the one-man advantage only lasted two minutes for Sepanggar with the referee deciding to signal the end of the match due to poor light and a penalty shoot-out was held to decide the winner, and Hazwan Jainin was the unlucky taker as he missed the only spot-kick for Sepanggar, while Telupid managed to score all five.
With the win, Telupid were crowned champions and awarded RM100,000, while Sepanggar had to settle for RM50,000. In the earlier play-off match, Semporna as expected thrashed Kudat 6-3 to take the third spot and RM30,000 with RM15,000 to Kudat. Keningau, Bandaraya, Ranau and Tongod who were the losing quarterfinalists each received RM2,000 as well. Telupid’s Jufrey was named best player in the final with teammate Teckson Tubin as the best goalkeeper, and each was given RM500, while the top scorer in the tournament went to Semporna’s Sharizam Sahar who also received RM500.
Fairplay award and RM2,000 was presented to Semporna who had earlier won the FA Cup and the RM50,000 cash prize with Sepanggar as runners-up with RM10,000. The tournament in its second edition organised by Kadazan Dusun Murut (KDM) Malaysia Organisation in collaboration with the Youth and Sports Ministry had earlier also staged the Charity Shield as the tournament opener. It was won by the first edition’s league champions Keningau who beat Papar, winners of the first FA Cup in the 2014-15 season, 3-2 to take home RM10,000 while Papar received RM3,500 Sabah Infrastructure Development Minister Datuk Peter Anthony, who is also President for KDM Malaysia and Sabah Football Association (Safa) was present in the final to watch the match and gave away the prizes. Also present were his deputy Datuk Juil Nuatin and all the top officials from KDM.
