SHAH ALAM: There is no more room for appeals over the fines handed out to 10 teams by the Malaysian Football League (MFL) for late or incomplete submission of registration document.
The reduction in fines decided by the MFL board in a meeting on Sunday is final, said chief executive Kevin Ramalingam.
Four Super League teams had their fines reduced from RM1.5 million to RM500,000 while six Premier League teams will only have to pay RM200,000 instead of RM500,000.
"There is no more room for appeals as the process only allowed for one appeal. The fines have already been brought down, so that is the end of it," said Kevin after giving a talk on MFL's contribution to the development of Malaysian football at Universiti Teknologi Mara in Shah Alam today.
"It is still a lot less than the initial fines. The letter that we sent out to the teams says that with the reductions come a strict caveat that they should not be surprised with fines higher than RM1 million in the event of a similar offence in future."
Kevin also brushed aside concerns that the reduced fines are still steep for what amounts to an administrative error.
"With teams now having budgets of RM15 million to RM25 million, a fine of RM10,000 is not sufficient and won't affect ithem in any way," he said.
"A fine of RM500,000 is significant enough to make a difference. If nobody is complaining then we have a problem.
"That means the fine is small and people are happy to pay. That is a dangerous situation. A fine is something that people should complain about and we welcome the complaints."
The 10 teams had the initial fines deducted from their profit-share given by MFL, who will now refund the reduced amounts to the affected teams.