AS tension in the Middle East escalates, Paris is beefing up security measures as it enters the final straight ahead of the 33rd Olympic Games in July.

HAVING chronicled the Malaysian football scene for more than three decades, this scribe can safely say the venomous poison pen letter with the long list of allegations against the president and general secretary of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) is not exactly unprecedented.

BELIEVE it or not, the pitch at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil on a few occasions proved to be playable and decent enough to host megastars over two decades ago.

THE Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games in 1998, or KL’98, was a hallmark event symbolising Malaysia’s international graduation into newly industrialising nation status.

JUST before the Malaysian hockey team made the trip to Barcelona for the Olympic Games in 1992, I requested for coach Terry Walsh to provide an individual analysis on each squad member.

EIGHT passes, seven players, 20 seconds – and GOAL!The move that led to Syahmi Safari’s wonder goal in the AFF Cup semi-finals against Thailand almost six years ago became the highlight of the launch of the much-awaited Malaysian DNA in 2019.

THERE was a time when Malaysian hockey gave us hope. A few times, in fact.

IT was exactly 20 years ago that Bryan Nickson Lomas was interviewed by the renowned Time magazine in a city steeped in Olympic tradition.

LITTLE did I realise the five-minute conversation with Khalid Ali at the University Malaya Medical Centre a week ago was to be the final farewell.

WHEN our strategic thinkers in Malaysian sports felt schools were no longer the main breeding ground of champions, the idea of establishing sports schools was mooted to ensure the conveyor belt keeps on running smoothly outside the existing system.

ON Tuesday, the nation bids farewell to the outgoing 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah, who shall return to rule his home State, Pahang.

ONE of the biggest challenges for the nation’s three biggest sports – football, badminton and hockey – is to cope with the stratospheric expectations from the public.