Merdeka Tournament () is an international friendly

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament held in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

to commemorate the

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

. It is mainly played at Independence Stadium, in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

. "Merdeka" is the Malay word for independence. As of 2023, the tournament has been held 42 times, though with decreasing frequency in recent decades. The Merdeka Tournament is the oldest invitational football tournament in Asia, and the matches in the tournament are considered International "A" matches (

Friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

) by FIFA.

History

The Merdeka Tournament is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957. The tournament also was once called the ‘Mini Asia Cup’ around the 1960s to 1980s, which was founded by the former AFC President,

Tunku Abdul Rahman Tunku Abdul Rahman (8 February 19036 December 1990), commonly referred to as Tunku, was a Malaysian statesman who served as prime minister of Malaysia from 1957 to 1970. He previously served as the only chief minister of Federation of Malaya ...

. At that time, the FIFA president, Sir Stanley Rous, was just as surprised that newly independent Asian country could successfully organize a football tournament where all expenses of the visiting teams were fully borne by the host. The Merdeka Tournament proved to be a huge success, inspiring similar tournaments like the Jakarta Anniversary Tournament in Indonesia, the King's Cup in Thailand and the President's Cup in South Korea. While the tournament had been held annually from 1957 to 1988, it has been held only ten times from 1989 to 2023. During the late 1950s to early 1980s, it was a prestigious tournament among Asian nations because the participants sent their full senior players. After the 1980s, interest in the cup waned from both football fans and football teams, because many Asian nations focused more on the qualification phases in the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

and

AFC Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second-oldest c ...

. The first edition of the tournament was held in August and September 1957 with

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...

emerging inaugural champions. However, from then on it was purely dominated by

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

and a host of other countries, including

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and

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an clubs. Malaysia/Malaya exclusively lifted the trophy ten times, emerged runners-up on eight occasions, and in addition shared the winner’s rostrum twice with

(1960 and 1979), while South Korean sides have won it seven times.

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and

hold multi-winning accolades. The other champions were

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

(1980),

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(2000),

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

(2001), Czechoslovakia Olympic (1987) and Austria’s with their SK Admira Wacker (1991), German

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), or HSV (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its Association football, football department. Though the current HSV was founde ...

(1988), Argentinian

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XI (1983) and Brazilian Santa Catarina XI (1982). Brazilian states' São Paulo XI, Minas Gerais XI, and America FC Rio de Janeiro finished runners-up, as have

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The 2024 Merdeka Tournament would be held in September 2024. Three countries will be invited to the tournament, from Kim Pan-gon's decision. The tournament uses the same format as the

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

edition, where higher-ranked teams received a bye in the semi-final, and only waiting in the finals.

List of finals

Below are the list of Merdeka Football Tournament finals since 1957.

Records and statistics

Performance by nations

Below are the records of national teams (including youth teams) since 1957.

Performance by state or club teams

Below are the records of state or clubteams since 1957.

All-time top scorers

Top scorers

Notable players

Here are some prominent footballers, who participated in this competition. * Mokhtar Dahari * Soh Chin Ann * Abdul Ghani Minhat * Chow Chee Keong *

P. K. Banerjee Pradip Kumar Banerjee (23 June 1936 – 20 March 2020) was an Indian professional association football, footballer who played as a forward (association football), striker for the India national football team. He also captained the nationa ...

* Chuni Goswami * Inder Singh * Sunil Chhetri * Moosa Ghazi * Muhammad Umer * Qayyum Changezi * M.N Jehan *

Kim Jae-han Kim Jae-han (born 1 April 1947) is a former South Korean football player. Early life Kim decided to be a baseball player in Daegu High School, but his baseball team was disbanded while he attended the school. He changed his career path late ...

* Cha Bum-kun * Park Sung-Hwa * Lee Woon-jae * Kunishige Kamamoto * Yasuhiko Okudera * Hiromi Hara * Abdul Kadir * Iswadi Idris * Jakob Kjeldbjerg * Jacob Laursen * Suk Bahadur * Hussein Saeed *

Abedi Pele Abedi Ayew ( ; born 5 November 1964), known professionally as Abedi Pele, is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder and served as captain of the Ghana national team. He is regarded as one of the grea ...

* Ryan Nelsen *

Kevin Keegan Joseph Kevin Keegan (born 14 February 1951) is an English former footballer and manager. Nicknamed "King Kev" or "Mighty Mouse", Keegan was recognised for his dribbling ability, as well as his finishing and presence in the air, and is regard ...

Notes

References

External links

{{Friendly association football tournaments in Asia International association football competitions hosted by Malaysia Recurring sporting events established in 1957 1957 establishments in Malaya International men's association football invitational tournaments