The economics of exporting a Malaysian footballer

The conversation returns every window. A Malaysian player has a good season, interest is reported from a league a tier or two above Liga Super, and then nothing happens. The assumption is usually that the player was not good enough. That is rarely the binding constraint.

The selling club has no incentive

A top Liga Super club is not financially dependent on transfer income. Its revenue comes from ownership, sponsorship and central distribution, none of which improve if it sells its best player. Meanwhile the sporting cost of selling is immediate and the replacement market is thin.

Contrast that with a Croatian or Belgian club of similar sporting level, whose entire model assumes it sells two players a season. Those clubs price to sell. Malaysian clubs price to keep, and a price set to keep is not a price anyone meets.

The wage problem runs the wrong way

The other half of it is that the top of Liga Super pays well relative to the leagues that would realistically buy. A move to a mid-table side in a stronger European league is frequently a pay cut for a player at a leading Malaysian club. That is a defensible reason for a footballer to stay, and it removes the pressure that usually forces these deals through.

What would change it

• Sell-on structures negotiated at signing rather than at the point of interest.
• A club that decides, as a matter of strategy, to be a selling club, and prices accordingly for two or three windows until the market believes it.
• Continental exposure. Buyers need to have watched a player in a competitive match against opposition they rate.

The third is happening. The first two are choices, and no Malaysian club has yet made them consistently enough to change the pattern.