KUALA LUMPUR: National coach Chiew Chun Yong hopes the return of the National Futsal League in February will stem the flow of players to football.
The lack of a professional league has seen futsal suffer with players looking at football as a more secure path to the future.
Despite having to choose from a limited pool of players, the national team performed creditably this year by winning silver at the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games and emerging runners-up at the AFF Championship.
Malaysia also qualified for the AFC Futsal Championship on Feb 1-11 next year and were drawn with hosts Taiwan, Vietnam and Bahrain in Group A today.
"It's a fact and reality I have to face when futsal players switch to football. It is nothing new to me,” said Chun Yong after guiding Milo Malaysia to a third straight title at the Milo Hidup Bola Under-16 Futsal Championship in Pattaya on Sunday.
"I also can't stop them from a better future in football. It is up to them to choose but of course I wish for them to stay with the national futsal team.
"The only way to convince them to stay is to have a professional national futsal league. I think we can then have a big pool of players."
Using the Milo Malaysia team as an example, Chun Yong expects the majority of the 12-member squad to move on to football.
"Futsal players who have better technique have the potential to do well in football," he said.
"I think 80 per cent of the players will move on to football with the skill and technique that they have. Due to the larger size of the football pitch, it can be an advantage for them."
Two past members of Milo Malaysia, Nik Akif Syahiran Nik Mat (2015) and A. Shivan Pillay (2016), have made a successful switch to football with both in the national Under-23 training squad under coach Ong Kim Swee.
On the AFC Championship draw, Chun Yong said: "We want to qualify for the quarter-finals as Malaysia have never cleared the group stage before. We came close in 2014 when lost 3-2 to Taiwan to miss out by a point."