2013 Malaysia Premier League

The 2013 Liga Premier (English: 2013 Premier League), also known as the Astro Liga Premier for sponsorship reasons, was the 10th season of the Liga Premier, the second-tier professional football league in Malaysia.^[1]

Liga Premier

Season	2013
Champions	Sarawak 1st title
Promoted	Sarawak Sime Darby
Relegated	Kuala Lumpur Betaria
Matches played	113
Goals scored	349 (3.09 per match)
Top goalscorer	Karlo Primorac (24 goals)
Biggest home win	Sarawak 7–0 Betaria (17 May 2013)
Biggest away win	Kuala Lumpur 0–5 Sime Darby (17 May 2013)
Highest scoring	8 goals UiTM 3-5 Sarawak (26 April 2013)
← 2012 2014 →

The season was held from 7 January and concluded on 5 July 2013.^[1]

The Liga Premier champions for 2013 season was Sarawak.^[1] The champions and runners-up were both promoted to 2014 Liga Super.

Team changes

To Liga Premier Relegated from Liga Super Sarawak Kedah Sabah Kuala Lumpur Promoted from Liga FAM SPA

From Liga Premier Promoted to Liga Super ATM Pahang Relegated to Liga FAM MB Johor Bahru Team withdrawing MP Muar USM MB Johor Bahru

Name changes

• Johor FA were merge with Johor FC and renamed to Johor (later as JDT II) and relocated to Pasir Gudang,Johor.

Teams

A total of twelve teams will contest the league. The teams competing includes the sides finishing 3rd to 6th from the 2012 Liga Premier season, Harimau Muda B who will stay in the league regardless of league position, the champion of 2012 Malaysia FAM League, and the bottom team from the 2012 Liga Super season. The remaining 5 places in the league will be contested in the playoff round between teams from Liga Super, Liga Premier and FAM League.

FAM later decided to withdraw Harimau Muda B from the league and register them in the 2013 S.League, replacing Harimau Muda A who pulled out of the S.League to embark on a tour of friendly matches in Europe, and preparing them for the 2013 Southeast Asian Games. Perlis, who originally were relegated after finishing second bottom in 2012 Liga Premier, were reinstated in the league as a result of the withdrawal.

Kuala Lumpur were relegated from 2012 Liga Super after finishing the season in the last place of the 14-team league table. Sarawak, Kedah and Sabah were also relegated after losing in the play-offs.

2012 Malaysia FAM League champions SPA secured direct promotion to this season Liga Premier. Meanwhile UiTM, the 3rd-place team in FAM League, were invited to replace USM FC, who were withdrawing from Liga Premier due to financial difficulties.

Team summaries

Stadium

Team	Team Based	Stadium Location	Stadium	Stadium Capacity
Betaria	Tampin	Paya Rumput	Hang Jebat Stadium	40,000
Johor	Johor Bahru	Pasir Gudang	Pasir Gudang Corporation Stadium	15,000
Kedah	Alor Star	Alor Star	Darulaman Stadium	32,387
Perlis	Kangar	Kangar	Utama Negeri Stadium	20,000
Sabah	Kota Kinabalu	Kota Kinabalu	Likas Stadium	30,000
Sarawak	Kuching	Kuching	Sarawak Stadium	40,000
Kuala Lumpur	Kuala Lumpur	Kuala Lumpur	KLFA Stadium	18,000
PDRM	Kuala Lumpur	Paya Rumput	Hang Jebat Stadium	40,000
Pos Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	Selayang	Majlis Perbandaran Selayang Stadium	25,000
Sime Darby	Kuala Lumpur	Selayang	Majlis Perbandaran Selayang Stadium	25,000
SPA	Putrajaya	Bangi	Petronas Mini Stadium	3,000
UiTM	Selangor	Shah Alam	UiTM Stadium	10,000

Personnel and sponsoring

Team	Coach	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
Betaria	Azuan Zain	Muhd Shahrul Nizam Abdul Hamid	Adidas
Johor	Azmi Mohamed	Mohd Farid Ramli	Kappa	Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA)
Kedah	Marijo Tot	Baddrol Bakhtiar	Line 7	PKNK
Kuala Lumpur	Stanislav Lievkosky	Azizon Abdul Kadir	Kronos	Rising Sun Travel & Tours
Perlis	Yunus Alif	Emmanuel Okine	Warriors
PDRM	R. Nalathamby	Mohd Afif Amiruddin	Line 7
Pos Malaysia	G. Torairaju	Abdullah Yusoff	Kappa	Pos Malaysia
Sabah	David McCreery	Rhys Weston	Adidas	Grace One
Sarawak	Robert Alberts	Mohd Shahrol Saperi	Starsports	NAIM Holdings Berhad
Sime Darby	Ismail Zakaria		Kappa	Sime Darby
SPA	Mohd Nizam Jamil	Sazali Suwandi	Kappa
UiTM	Azman Eusoff		Umbro	Ministry of Higher Education

Coaching changes

Pre-season

Club	Outgoing Head Coach	Date of vacancy	Manner of departure	Incoming Head Coach	Date of appointment
Kuala Lumpur	Razip Ismail	13 November 2012[2]	Signed by Harimau Muda B	Stanislav Lievkosky	4 December 2012

Foreign players

Club	Visa 1	Visa 2	Asian Players
Betaria	Tomáš Chovanec	Hillary Echesa	None
Johor	Muriel Orlando	Ezaquiel Gallegos	None
Kedah	Nelson San Martín	Alen Guć	None
Kuala Lumpur	Kalle Sone		None
Perlis	Denny Antwi	Emmanuel Okine	None
PDRM	Edrisar Kaye	Mohamadou Sumareh	None
Pos Malaysia	None	None	None
Sabah	Abdulfatah Safi	Koh Traore	None
Sarawak	Guy Bwele	Muamer Salibasic	None
Sime Darby	Karlo Primorac	Togaba Kontiwa Komlan	None
SPA	Joël Tchami	Eddy Viator	None
UiTM	Koforowola Hameed Adewumi	None	None

^{[citation needed]}

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Promotion or relegation
1	Sarawak (C, P)	22	18	4	0	49	12	+37	58	Promotion to 2014 Liga Super
2	Sime Darby (P)	22	17	3	2	51	12	+39	54
3	Johor	22	14	3	5	58	23	+35	45
4	Kedah	22	13	3	6	38	19	+19	42
5	Sabah	22	9	3	10	42	46	−4	30
6	Pos Malaysia	22	7	6	9	24	28	−4	27
7	PDRM	22	7	4	11	41	39	+2	25
8	SPA	22	6	5	11	29	38	−9	23
9	UiTM	22	6	5	11	22	35	−13	23
10	Perlis	22	6	4	12	27	42	−15	22
11	Kuala Lumpur (R)	22	4	2	16	21	58	−37	14	Relegation to 2014 Malaysia FAM League
12	Betaria (R)	22	2	4	16	13	63	−50	10

Updated to match(es) played on 5 July 2013. Source: fam.org and Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored.
(C) Champions; (P) Promoted; (R) Relegated

Results

Home \ Away	BET	JHR	KED	KLU	PDRM	PER	POS	SAB	SWK	SDA	SPA	UIT
Betaria		0–2	0–0	3–2	1–3	1–1	1–1	1–4	0–1	0–6	0–2	0–1
Johor	43–2		1–0	5–1	2–1	6–1	1–1	6–1	1–2	0–0	5–1	2–0
Kedah	36–4	2–1		3–0	4–1	1–2	1–0	3–2	1–1	1–2	2–1	1–1
Kuala Lumpur	12–2	1–3	0–1		0–4	0–2	0–3	3–2	0–1	0–5	0–0	2–1
PDRM	15–4	2–3	2–0	4–1		2–3	1–1	3–3	1–11	0–2	3–3	0–0
Perlis	17–1	0–4	0–1	0–1	3–1		1–3	1–1	1–2	0–2	1–1	1–1
Pos Malaysia	14–0	0–2	1–5	3–2	0–1	0–1		1–0	0–3	1–1	1–1	1–0
Sabah	46–1	3–2	0–2	3–1	5–3	3–2	1–2		1–2	1–5	2–1	3–1
SWK	61–0	8–2	4–0	8–0	7–0	2–0	2–0	0–0		6–0	7–1	10–0
Sime Darby	53–0	1–0	2–1	5–1	3–2	4–1	2–0	3–1	0–0		2–1	2–0
Putrajaya SPA	10–3	1–3	1–2	1–3	1–0	4–2	1–0	2–4	1–1	1–0		0–1
UiTM	13–1	2–2	0–2	3–1	0–2	2–0	1–1	2–0	3–5	0–2	1–2

Updated to match(es) played on 5 July 2013. Source: Stadium Astro
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Season statistics

Top scorers

As of 22 May 2013^[3]

Further information: 2013 Liga Premier goalscorers

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Bobby Gonzales	Sarawak	20
2	Muriel Orlando	Johor	17
3	Koh Traore	Sabah	15
4	Mohd Saufi Ibrahim	Pos Malaysia	12
5	Mohd Khyril Muhymeen Zambri	Kedah	9
	Mohd Farid Ideris	Johor	9
6	Khairul Izuan Abdullah	PDRM	8
7	Muhd Khairul Akhyar Hussain	PDRM	7
8	Alen Guć	Kedah	6

Own goals

Rank	Player	For	Club	Goals
1	Marlon Alex james	SPA	PDRM

Clean sheets

• Most clean sheets:
• Fewest clean sheets:

See also

• List of Liga Premier seasons
• 2013 Liga Super
• 2013 Malaysia FAM League
• 2013 Piala FA