KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 — The Malaysian Football League (MFL) will continue to enforce strict measures with the support of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) to make sure there will be no issues of outstanding salary payment among teams in the M-League.

MFL chief executive officer Stuart Ramalingam said the enforcement of strict guidelines and punishment against teams involved in non-payment of salary to players, the number of cases has dropped from more than 200 cases since 2018 to about 9 to 13 cases currently.

"Efforts to reduce issues of non-payment of salary has been enforced. We also made a few important decisions last year, including not issuing licence to play in the M-League to Melaka United and Sarawak United, for similar reasons.

"Therefore, it is clear that MFL and FAM are serious in putting an end to issues of non-payment of salary to players in the M-League,” he told reporters after signing a sponsorship agreement with BubblesO2 for the M-League this season, here today.

According to Stuart, teams playing in the M-League have a better understanding of the need to be prudent in their spending and to ensure players are paid their salaries promptly.

"To be eligible for a licence to play in the M-League, teams will be judged on their payment of salary to players. So we hope this year we can work closer with the teams and don’t see it happening anymore. Every team knows the importance of the licence,” he said when responding to a statement by FAM president Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin who urged extreme measures be taken against teams that do not resolve issues of salary to players. — Bernama