“Yes. I do not know if it’s good (for football). But let me go there, better to have my say, and he has his say,” he was reported as saying before the Sports Writers Association Malaysia (SAM) awards here.

This follows a Facebook post last night by Tunku Ismail, in which he challenged, among others, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to the debate after the minister had blamed local players for the decline in Malaysia’s football ranking.

Khairy’s statement came following the country’s all-time low Fifa ranking of 174 last week.

Earlier today, Football Coaches Association of Malaysia President B Sathianathan said a debate with the Johor crown prince may be the best way to restore pride in national football.

In a report in Malaysiakini, Sathianathan said he would accept the challenge to a debate on the performance of the national football team.

“Since I became a coach in 1992 until now, we have only talked a lot. We have to find a formula on how we want to make the results of the debate a reality,” he said.

In his Facebook post last night, the crown prince had stated: “I urge Astro to put Khairy, a representative from FAM, (Football Association of Malaysia national football coach) Ong Kim Swee, (national football development programme director) Lim Teong Kim, Sathia and myself on live television to talk about who’s responsible for the poor performance of our national team and Malaysian football and what course of action to take.”