Hannah Yeoh: Vacant Seats Issue For M’sia-Thailand AFF Cup Clash is Due to Concert Booked Much Earlier

Recently, the 2022 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Cup Group B match between Malaysia and Singapore left plenty of local fans happy following the 4-1 result at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

This means that Malaysia would proceed to the semi-finals of the cup where we would need to face Thailand tomorrow (January 7) at the Bukit Jalil stadium in the first leg match up.

However, despite the joy felt by Malaysian football fans, controversy has erupted over the use of the stadium as the setup for the upcoming concert by Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou on January 15 means that 21,000 seats would be unusable for the clash between Malaysia and Thailand.

A number of Harimau Malaya fans has since taken to social media to air their grievances on the issue, and even bombarded Chou’s social media pages, asking him to postpone his concert.

The resounding backlash has led to Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh to provide an explanation on the matter via her social media accounts.

In a post on Twitter yesterday (January 5), Yeoh wrote, “The booking for the Jay Chou World Tour was made in March 2019 whereas the Football Association Of Malaysia booked the stadium for AFF 2022 in August 2022.”

Yeoh also stressed that the organisers for Chou’s concert had already delayed the setup by two-and-a-half days to make room for the 2022 AFF Cup Semi-finals.

“The organisers need 14 days to set up the stage. The setup involves 500 crew members, 185 international crew members, 45 heavy machinery, 200 speakers and 800 lights.”

“So both events have a strong fan base. We want to give all the support to Harimau Malaya this Saturday, as well as the concert that has been booked earlier,” she also told BERNAMA.

Meanwhile, Hannah said the situation would remain the same if Malaysia qualified for the final, with the second leg scheduled to take place on January 16.

“The corporation (Perbadanan Stadium Malaysia) has made an effort to plan on how to cater for everyone… so that (final) will continue, but in the current situation, where the areas will be blocked off.”

“…because the most suitable location for FAM (Malaysian Football Association) is here (Bukit Jalil National Stadium) because there is public transportation and a large number of seats, and this is an unavoidable situation because the booking was made earlier,” she explained.

Chou’s concert was initially supposed to take place in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

What do you think of Yeoh’s explanation? Let us know in the comments.

Also read: WATCH: Harimau Malaya Fans Surprised to Find Themselves Sitting Next to KJ During Yesterday’s Match