KUALA LUMPUR: The Super League is getting smaller but more expensive. And teams look at one another, wondering who is next.
Will the 2023 Super League, which shrank to 15 teams from the original 18, end up becoming 14?
Sarawak United and Melaka United, repeat offenders for not paying players their salaries, packed up and left the league after failing to obtain national licences.
Then PJ City announced their withdrawal due to the league's changing football structure which allowed teams to sign up to nine foreign players instead of the current five.
Now the football fraternity is looking at UiTM FC, wondering whether they will close shop.
It is made known that the university outfit will find it hard to meet the league requirement of having a feeder team.
UiTM FC president Professor Dr Sazili Shahibi has admitted it will be difficult for them to have a "second team" to compete in the Reserve League that will replace the second tier Premier League. This would lead to them incurring extra expenses, and they just don't have the money.
Although the MFL have issued the university team a licence, UiTM are still concerned about how are they going to get RM6 million to run four teams for the Super League, Reserve League, President's Cup and Youth Cup.
"We have been by far the team with the lowest budget in the league. But with the restructured league, we will need to find RM6 million," said Sazili.
"When we competed in the Super League alone, we spent RM4 million and in last year's Premier League, we spent RM3.7 million. But now we need to find more money because there are more matches and the reserve squad to take care of.
"Even with us not hiring foreign players next season, we still have to get RM6 million, and that is the minimum amount needed.
"If you see our matches this year, we used 100 per cent university students and we qualified for the Malaysia Cup on merit."
This year, UiTM finished seventh in the Premier League with 20 points from 18 games and were just one point short of Police in sixth place and five points shy of Kelantan United in fifth place.
The Lions failed to progress to the Malaysia Cup quarter-finals after losing 3-2 on aggregate to Sabah in the round of 16.
"Although we used our own players, we didn't end up doing badly as what others thought when we first started the season," said Sazili.
"We would like to continue our efforts in the M-League because we want to help produce local talents for the national team."
Sazili disclosed that their Reserve League side could comprise students from other universities across Malaysia as their all-local concept is in line with local football development.