THE National Stadium in Bukit Jalil will remain the venue for the Merdeka tournament final between Malaysia and Tajikistan on Tuesday despite ongoing concerns over its pitch condition, said the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) today.

FAM said the decision was made after checking the pitch’s latest condition this afternoon.

It added that it was confident the pitch would be ready to host the match.

“Although the new pitch wasn’t satisfactory during the game between Malaysia and India last Friday, FAM is confident and believes that the Malaysia Stadium Corporation (PSM), technical consultants and contractors can get the pitch up to speed by Tuesday,” said FAM in a statement.

It said FAM president Hamidin Amin, PSM chairman Hans Isaac, PSM board director Windsor John, Merdeka Tournament local competitions chairman Firdaus Mohamed and national senior team head coach Kim Pan Gon inspected the pitch this afternoon to check its condition.

“After which, it was concluded that the final on Tuesday will be played in Bukit Jalil after seeing positive improvement,” it said.

Football fans had criticised FAM and the stadium board for the poor pitch condition when Malaysia played India on Friday, especially since the pitch was only newly laid.

FAM said there were some unavoidable factors that had affected the pitch condition but said it was still better than the previous cow grass.

“Taking into consideration the stadium as the home of Harimau Malaya and the ticket sales that have reached 10,000 fans so far, there are no other venues in the Klang Valley that can cater to that capacity except the national stadium,” said FAM.

It said it had also considered other factors like logistics, secretariat, staff and teams, but there were no other venues in the Klang Valley that could accommodate such a number of fans.

“FAM also thanked Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh and PSM for working to ensure the change of grass, from cow grass to zeon zoysia, was a success.

“Thank you to His Royal Highness Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim for his ‘sponsorship’ of the zeon zoysia grass,” it said. – October 15, 2023.