AFF Suzuki Cup Win & Public Holiday

PM Najib Razak has declared a public holiday on 31st Dec (friday) to celebrate Malaysia’s first ever victory in the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Suzuki Cup championship. His decision sounds rather outrageous to me.

Before I continue, I would like to congratulate the national team for winning the Asean cup for the first time in 21 years. It is an admirable performance. The national team should be encouraged to perform better in the future to recapture Malaysia's past glory.

Remember, the Malaysian national had achieved much more than this victory. We had won bronze medals at the Asian cup twice and qualified for the Olympics twice too! Our national team had made a mince meat of teams such as Japan and South Korea during their heydays.

The national team is doing a catch up now. We should celebrate their rise and hope that they could maintain their consistency to justice our investment and attention given to them.

However, the Asean cup is a good stepping stone but it is not an Asian cup or the World Cup. Is there a need to declare a public holiday?

My business contacts called me to voice their frustration. 31st Dec is a busy day for those in the events management, retail, F&B and service industry. Many companies are rushing for the financial year end closing. Most of them needed capacity manpower.

A public holiday is going to disrupt business operations and productivity. Those who wanted their staff to come back for work will have to pay triple for a day's work.

We should rejoice but not over doing it or doing it without understanding the full consequences. Is Najib implying that the national football team can now take a break too after winning the Asean cup?

It is just but a regional competition. True champions go back immediately to the training ground after a victory to ensure that they ironed out any remaining weakness in their game.

Najib should show a good example by urging Malaysians to strive harder to improve.

A public holiday? The Malaysian team lost 1-2 in Indonesia. An outright victory would have been more convincing for us.

Maybe we should declare more holidays too if Najib administration could bring several high profile corrupt culprits, murderers and rapists to face their punishment.

I would like to repeat again. It is good to encourage our boys in the national team to work harder and to win more honours but do not over do it.
Posted by Khoo Kay Peng at 4:38 PM