Malaysian football, as far as I can tell, is currently being run with all the structural sanity of a medieval kingdom governed by competing dukes.

For months, we have watched the Football Association of Malaysia stagger from one crisis to another, culminating in a naturalization saga so spectacularly botched that even international auditors had to step in with clipboards and furious expressions. Now, on September 17, the grand assembly gathers at the FAM Congress to elect a new President. We are told this is a fresh start. We are told the dark ages are over.

I have my doubts.

You see, in the old days, FAM elections weren’t really elections at all. They were elaborate theatrical performances. A candidate would announce his grand ambition to lead, only to be quietly shuffled into a dimly lit backroom two days later and “advised” to step down for the sake of unity. It was the administrative equivalent of telling a child he can choose any ice cream flavor he wants, provided it is vanilla, and provided he hands the spoon back immediately.

This “guided consensus” was hailed as harmony. In reality, it was a catastrophe. It eliminated the single most important element required to run any organization larger than a village bake sale: a proper, uncomfortable, sweat-inducing check and balance mechanism. Without an opposition breathing down your neck, you don’t build robust systems. You build a palace of cards and hope nobody opens a window.

Now, we are promised a proper democratic contest between Datuk Ab Ghani Hassan and Datuk Seri Shahril Mokhtar. On paper, this looks like progress. The voting pool has been expanded to 39 delegates, bringing in the professional Super League clubs alongside the traditional state associations. The idealists among us are already weeping with joy, imagining a bright new dawn where these newly enfranchised club owners march into the congress room as a noble, unified bloc of incorruptible reform.

What utter rubbish.

To believe that rival professional football clubs will form a harmonious, crusading alliance is to misunderstand the very essence of human nature. These are organizations that would contest the toss of a coin with the fury of a spurned monarch. They have wildly different budgets, competing regional backer interests, and grudges that stretch back decades. A club struggling to pay its electricity bill does not care about the same existential governance frameworks as a club with unlimited sovereign wealth. They will not vote as a bloc. They will split, fracture, and cut deals in the hallway, exactly as politicians have done since the dawn of time.

And frankly, that is fine. What concerns me isn’t who wins. I don’t care if the new President is an established insider or an enthusiastic corporate titan. What terrifies me is the prospect of a blowout victory.

Imagine a voting outcome of 26 to 13. A two-thirds supermajority. The pundits would call it a decisive mandate. I would call it an absolute disaster.

When an administrator wins by a landslide, a very specific type of madness sets in. They begin to believe that two-thirds of the universe agrees with everything they say. The dissenting minority is promptly ignored, shoved into a corner, and forgotten. The executive committee becomes an echo chamber where nobody raises their hand to ask awkward questions like, “Are we absolutely sure these player eligibility documents are legitimate?”

A blowout victory breeds complacency, and complacency in football governance is precisely how you end up in FIFA’s crosshairs in the first place.

What Malaysian football needs on September 17 is not a heroic savior delivering a landslide victory. What it needs is a razor-thin margin. A result so agonizingly close—say, 20 to 19—that whoever takes the top seat wakes up every single morning in a cold sweat, knowing that if they drop the ball even slightly, half the room is waiting to tear them to shreds.

Power must be made uncomfortable. For real accountability to exist after the votes are counted, the system must enforce strict secret-ballot privacy so delegates can vote their conscience without fearing retaliation. It requires completely independent disciplinary and electoral committees that do not take orders from the Exco. And above all, it requires an electorate that refuses to sit down and shut up once the election dinner is finished.

If the winner gets an easy ride, nothing changes. The scandals will return, the press releases will be issued, and we will be back in the exact same mess four years from now. Whoever wins on September 17 must not be given a throne. They must be given a very hot seat, surrounded by people holding magnifying glasses.