BIBI Ramjani Ilyas Khan does not know a thing about football, let alone managing a team. Yet this steely 46-year-old is already proving that passion and sincerity can outweigh experience.

And she will need all that passion and sincerity if she is to rescue the Kelantan football team, a storied club that is deep in debt.

After making history as the second woman to helm a state football team, this successful batik merchant is already turning heads in Kelantan – a poor, rural region steeped in patriarchy.

Bibi Ramjani was elected as the Kelantan Football Association (Kafa) president on September 17, the first woman in its 71-year history. She is the second woman in the country to occupy such a post after Tunku Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah, who helms Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT).

One of the first things this single mother did, which the men before her could not, was settle all of the players’ unpaid salaries – out of her own pocket.

“Some of them even had their cars repossessed because they could not service their loans on time,” said Bibi Ramjani, of the club’s 60 players who did not get their July and August salaries.

“The salaries have been settled, except for some who complained to FAM (Football Association of Malaysia).

“This caused us many problems with our licence. It is the problem of the old management,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

“It is an old virus. It can be said that we have solved 80% of it.”

Although it is worthy start to solving the many problems of this former top team, Bibi Ramjani knows of the winding and thorny road ahead.

For starters, there is the scepticism about whether a woman can turn around the once-proud-but-now ailing team.

“I’ve heard worse things said about me. But I know I have what it takes and I won’t surrender. My only intention is to help them up again.

“I know people have asked, ‘can a woman do this?’ But I tell them, your own mothers could raise 10 of you single-handedly. But if your dads lose your mothers, they would remarry the next day.”

She has that same sort of confidence when she says she’ll do what it takes to rescue the Red Warriors from the edge of ruin.

“I like doing things that no one else does. Just like in business. I don’t like to do what others do,” said the owner of Desa Murni Batik Sdn Bhd, one of the biggest batik producers in Kelantan.

“In my life, I’ve done things that were the domain of men, such as entering the construction industry. You rarely find women in that sector. I am the type who relishes a challenge.”

Delivering on promises 

Between 2009 and 2014, the Red Warriors stormed out of Kelantan to become the team to watch in the Super and Premier leagues.

Football fans compared Kelantan’s dominance during those years with the Selangor football team in the 1990s. During one season, every match that was telecast live on local television was a Kelantan game, no matter who they were playing.

But their fortunes took a dive beginning in 2015 and the Red Warriors now rank 11 out of 12 teams in the Super league, the top division in Malaysian football. Teams in this league also qualify for the prestigious AFC Champions League (AFC Cup).

Depending on how they fare against Malacca on October 28, they could be kicked out the league in the next season.

Allegations of mismanagement led to funding problems and Kafa was unable to pay its players their July and August salaries

It was in these turbulent times that Bibi Ramjani decided to put her name in the hat at Kafa’s congress last month. At the time, her company was a sponsor of the team.

She garnered 32 votes to Muhammad Nasir Hamzah’s 19 to clinch the top post.

Less than two weeks later, she managed to settle almost all of the unpaid salaries of 60 players, which reportedly totalled close to a RM1 million.

She paid the salaries for all its three teams in the Super , Premier and under-19 league.

She has no qualms about using her own money to pay the outstanding wages.

“If we promise something then we have to deliver. It was my sincere intention to help them.”

It was this sincerity that first propelled her to decide to contest for the presidency.

“Someone from the (association’s) exco told me to contest. I thought it over. Instead of just being a sponsor why not try managing the team.

“If I just stayed on as a sponsor, the problems wouldn’t be solved. My intention is to help bring integrity into Kafa’s management.”

A lifeline

The chance to rescue Kafa also coincides with a low point in her life and the opportunity has become a lifeline.

Bibi Ramjani lost her mother four years ago at about the same time she was going through her divorce.

It was her mother who first taught her the value of hard work and determination. Her father died when she was only five and her mother raised her and four siblings on the money she made selling roti canai.

“Ever since I was seven, I helped my mother make roti canai dough at home. I would send it to the shop before I going to school.”

It was also her mother who mentored her when she first started selling batik in Kota Baru.

“Losing her was a great shock. I lost my spirit. But I told myself I didn’t want to remain like that… that I wanted to be aggressive again.”

So she at first, enrolled in a distance learning course to get her degree in business administration from Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM).

She is to graduate at the end of February but decided to look for something else to occupy her time and to take away her loneliness.

“That’s why I agreed to contest the presidency. So that I have a commitment. So that I won’t be so sad.”

These days, Bibi Ramjani doesn’t get much sleep because she is trying to balance both her business and the demands of the football team.

But the rigours of both jobs appear to sit well on her square shoulders.

“Now that I am occupying the post, I feel good. Even though I am busy I feel very active. I feel like putting on lipstick and make-up again.” – October 8, 2017.