Football-based 'Reality TV' series hits Malaysia

An innovative football realty television show has been launched on the TV3 network in Malaysia. The MyTeam series will screen for 11 weeks starting culminating in the show's amateur team (assembled through trials) playing the official Malaysian national team on 28 May at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

Having sanctioned the program and even allowed its national team to be "sparring partners" in a match, Football Association of Malaysia has been "getting a lot of flak for allowing their players to be 'degraded' in agreeing to take on an amateur team that would have only trained for eight weeks in an official match. "This, many felt, is Malaysian soccer going to the pits", the Malay Mail reported.

Jason Lo, the CEO of Maya Team Sdn Bhd, creator and promoter of MyTeam, said the formation of the team was not to challenge FAM, but just offering another option to identify talent, and more importantly, to prod the general public into talking about local soccer games.

"Much have been reported in the newspapers, television and radio about the MyTeam playing the national team since we launched it last week.This is something we were hoping for," he said. "Whether good or bad, people are talking about local soccer. In recent years, we have not been able to get this kind of hype for a match involving the national team."