Pillar of pioneer work
Golden effort from unstoppable normala in promoting football among women
PETALING JAYA: From player to coach and now an administrator, Normala Rashid has come full circle in her roles in women’s football in Malaysia.
Despite being under the radar, Normala has played a big part in developing women’s football in the country.
And even at 63, the gung-ho lady is not planning to stop.
In fact, driven by passion for the sport, Normala is determined to raise the standard of female footballers in whichever capacity she could.
It all however started with a humble beginning for the cheerful person from Taiping when she formed the first amateur football club in the country – Sri Kandi FC in Perak in 1998 to give young players a platform to develop their talent.
“I started the club as there was a high demand from youngsters, who wanted a platform to play football,” said Normala.
“I understood their difficulties as that time, there were not many pathways for them to develop.
“I myself was in the same situation when I played football. Nowadays, there are a lot of clubs but last time there were none.
“When I started to play at the age of 15 in 1976, I was not encouraged as the perception towards women’s football was different.
“I was from a village and my friends and those around me in my community was angry to see me play football.
“Luckily my late father stood by me and fully supported me. I wanted to support the children, who were interested to play as well.
“The Women’s Football Association (WFA) which was a non-govermental organisation (NGO) were overseeing women’s football. Now, things are different as Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) look after women’s football as well.
“When I first formed my club, I did not charge the students any fees. Later on, I only asked them to pay RM5 each.”
Normala even took a bank loan to cover the cost of running the club.
“I’m not from rich family. I took a loan of RM35,000 to buy equipment and cover the transportation for the volunteer coaches I enlisted,” said Normala.
“Initially, my plan was to only take in girls but then boys asked me if they could join as well.
“I felt I needed to do something to accommodate the boys as well.”
Normala’s club became highly successful and produced many players for the national team.
She had an uncanny knack for unearthing talent.
Normala introduced current national team captain Steffi Sarge Kaur to football.
“Steffi was also from Taiping and I knew her father. She started out by playing hockey before I told her father to switch her to football. I started coaching her,” said Normala.
“Currently, around 15 players in the national football and futsal teams are from my club.”
Besides coaching, Normala also had two stints in FAM (2006-2008 and 2016-2018) as head of women’s football.
“As head of women’s football, I wanted more women involved in the sport as coaches and administrators,” said Normala.
“To that end, I organised more coaching courses for former players. I also brought in a rule where the teams in Tun Sharifah Rodziah Cup must have a female assistant coach.
“There were not many women, who had coaching licence at that time. Now we can have more women as head coaches.
“I also made sure that there was at least one women representative in every state association to oversee women’s football at the state level.”
Normala is still doing her all to develop women’s football through the Malaysian Women Footballers Association (MWFA).
“I formed MWFA in 2018 and currently we have 88 members,” said Normala.
“The main objective is to assist in players welfare and continue to help develop women’s football in the country.”
Normala also gave her two cents on what needed to be done to elevate women’s football in Malaysia.
“We need to organise more local tournaments to unearth new talent,” said Normala.
“Currently, there is only the Tun Sharifah Rodziah Cup which has been organised since my playing days 42 years ago.
“FAM introduced a league format in this tournament. But I told them to leave it as an interstate competition and conduct another league tournament between clubs.
“Now, the same players play for both the football and futsal teams as well.
“Women’s football is becoming more popular and FAM should seize this opportunity to elevate our standards.
“They should work with more private sponsors to have more tournaments.”
Normala also believes that current head coach Soleen Al-zoubi is doing an encouraging job and needs to be given full support to lift the team.