AFC scraps honorary president position in proposed FAM statute

AFC secretary-general Windsor Paul John said such roles were no longer relevant in modern football governance and not the practice of major football governing bodies including International Federation of Association Football (Fifa).

“There is no more honorary practice. It used to be there and it was popular – Fifa and AFC also have – but now in modern football, the statute has changed,” he said when met here yesterday.

The suggestion was among the 94 articles proposed in the 2026 FAM statute, to be tabled by the AFC during the FAM extraordinary congress in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, this Thursday.

The current honorary FAM president is former president Hamidin Amin, who was appointed during the extraordinary congress in June last year.

Windsor also outlined wider proposed reforms involving a major restructuring of standing committees, saying committee leadership should be based on expertise rather than executive committee representation.

As such, he said AFC had proposed that key areas such as stadium management, security, integrity, referees, and medical committees be chaired by subject-matter experts.

He said the chairing of the FAM extraordinary congress would be decided by the congress itself.

He said the chairman could be nominated on the day of the extraordinary congress from any relevant football body, including Fifa or AFC.

In January, the FAM executive committee members for the 2025–2029 term resigned en masse on a collective and voluntary basis.

Windsor reportedly said that a special team from the AFC would be formed and led by AFC deputy secretary-general Vahid Kardany, together with several consultants, to carry out an assessment before presenting a report with recommendations for improvements to FAM.

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