FAM confirmed the full candidate list this week for the Second FAM Extraordinary Congress on September 17 (tomorrow), and as I read through it, one thing jumped out at me immediately. The presidency comes down to two names: Dato’ Ab Ghani Bin Hassan and Dato’ Sri Shahril Bin Mokhtar. Clean, straightforward, a genuine head-to-head. But look one row down at Naib Presiden 1, and it’s a three-way contest between Datuk Seri Haji Rosmadi Bin Haji Ismail, Mohd Firdaus Bin Mohamed, and Syed Yazid Bin Syed Omar. The club-side Exco seat has five names chasing two spots. This is not a coronation. It’s a genuinely contested election, across almost every seat on the ballot, at the exact moment Malaysian football can least afford to get its leadership wrong.

So here’s the question I keep coming back to: why isn’t there a public debate?

I know the mechanics. Only the 39 affiliated members actually get to cast a vote at Congress on September 17. The wider public, the fans in the stands, the weekend league players, the youth academy coaches- none of them has a ballot. I’m not naive about that, and I’m not suggesting FAM’s governance structure should change overnight to accommodate public referendums. But there’s a difference between who gets to vote and who the outcome actually belongs to. Malaysian football isn’t the property of 39 affiliates. It’s the Harimau Malaya shirt a kid wears to school. It’s the weekend futsal court packed at 11 pm because that’s the only slot available. It’s every parent driving two hours so their child can trial for a state academy. The affiliates hold the ballot, but the rest of us hold the stake.

That’s exactly why a debate matters here more than it might in a quieter year. Trust in FAM is not in a healthy place right now. We’re less than a year removed from the entire Exco resigning over a fake documents scandal that dragged in seven capped internationals and triggered a twelve-month FIFA suspension. The revised electoral regulations that govern this very Congress still haven’t been made fully public. Against that backdrop, candidates’ silence isn’t neutral. It reads as more of the same insider process that got us here in the first place.

A debate, even an informal one, does three things that a printed candidate list simply cannot. First, it forces a manifesto into existence. Right now we have names and job titles, not plans. Does Ab Ghani have a concrete position on how FAM rebuilds its finances after the suspension? Does Shahril Mokhtar have a specific number in mind for grassroots coaching investment, or a timeline for when the next generation of players gets a clearer pathway? A debate is the only format that forces a candidate to answer a direct question in front of an audience, rather than issue a polished statement written by someone else. Second, it lets voters, both the 39 who actually decide and the millions who don’t, see how a candidate thinks under pressure. Administration is not a ceremonial job. It involves budget disputes, disciplinary crises, negotiating with the AFC and FIFA when things go wrong. A debate is a small, low-stakes preview of exactly that kind of pressure. Third, and maybe most importantly right now, it’s a trust-building exercise. Standing up in public and being questioned by journalists or fans signals that a candidate sees themselves as accountable to more than just the room that elects them.

I’d point to how other federations have handled contested leadership races as proof this isn’t radical. Political parties debate. Corporate boards hold shareholder Q&As. Even sporting bodies elsewhere have run public candidate forums ahead of federation elections, precisely because members wanted more than a CV before casting a vote. FAM doesn’t need to reinvent this. A single moderated session, streamed on FAM TV or shared across the football media, with the same set of questions put to both presidential candidates and, where practical, the contested VP and Exco races, would cost very little and signal a great deal.

To be fair to the candidates, some of this burden shouldn’t fall on them alone. It’s on FAM itself, and frankly on outlets like this one, to actually organise the platform rather than hope someone volunteers to be scrutinised. Candidates rarely ask for more questions on their own. Someone has to build the room and open the door.

With September 17 closing in fast, there’s still time for one structured conversation between Ab Ghani and Shahril Mokhtar, and ideally for the contested Naib Presiden and Exco races too. It won’t change who has the vote. But it might change how informed that vote actually is, and it would go some way toward showing the wider football public that this federation, finally, has nothing to hide.