Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) secretary-general Saifuddin Abu Bakar said that they were finding it difficult to send the senior squad, also known as Harimau Malaya, for the friendlies that are being drawn up for the Fifa calendar from Jan 24-Feb 1.

This, he said, was due to the fact that the Harimau Malaya still do not have a head coach and the local teams are in the midst of preparing for their pre-season ahead of the 2022 M-League season.

“The Under-23 team, preparing for the 2022 AFF Under-23 Championship in Cambodia in February, will fill the slot for the Fifa calendar this time,” he told a press conference today.

“We have written to several countries for international friendlies with their Under-23 squads or club sides.”

Saifuddin said FAM would also hold talks with local clubs or state sides to release their players in a more systematic manner for Harimau Malaya’s preparations for the SEA Games in Hanoi in May and the 2022 Asian Cup in Uzbekistan in June.

“We hope to reach a win-win situation and not just insist they must all release their players. Perhaps, we could use certain players for one tournament and another group later,” he said.

Meanwhile, FAM would not be involved in the independent investigation body headed by former national player-cum-former Kuala Lumpur police chief Dell Akbar Khan conducting a post-mortem on Harimau Malaya’s poor performance at the AFF Cup in Singapore.

Malaysia failed to reach the semifinals after ending Group B in third place.

They began the campaign with two wins (3-1 against Cambodia and 4-0 against Laos) before losing 3-0 to Vietnam and 4-1 to Indonesia, thus failing to achieve FAM’s target of qualifying for the final.

Coach Tan Cheng Hoe resigned last Monday, taking full responsibility for the team’s lacklustre performance although some supporters and critics have attributed it to FAM’s weakness in planning and preparing the team properly.