2019 Malaysia Super League

The 2019 Malaysia Super League (Malay: Liga Super Malaysia 2019)^[1] is the 16th season of the Malaysia Super League, the top-tier professional football league in Malaysia.^[2]

Liga Super Malaysia

Season	2019
Dates	1 February – 21 July 2019
Champions	Johor Darul Ta'zim 6th Super League title 6th Liga M title
Relegated	PKNP PKNS Kuala Lumpur
AFC Champions League	Johor Darul Ta'zim Kedah FA
Matches played	132
Goals scored	403 (3.05 per match)
Top goalscorer	Kpah Sherman (14 goals)
Biggest home win	Melaka United 6–0 Felda United (15 May 2019)
Biggest away win	Selangor 0–4 PKNS FC (17 February 2019) PKNP 0–4 Perak (27 April 2019) Kuala Lumpur 0–4 Johor Darul Ta'zim (13 July 2019)
Highest scoring	9 goals Felda United FC 5–4 PKNS FC (14 June 2019)
Longest winning run	4 matches Johor Darul Ta'zim
Longest unbeaten run	20 matches Johor Darul Ta'zim
Longest winless run	13 matches PKNP
Longest losing run	7 matches Kuala Lumpur
← 2018 2020 →

Johor Darul Ta'zim are the current defending champions from the 2018 Malaysia Super League seasons and will qualify for the group stage of 2019 AFC Champions League.

The first transfer window is from 29 November 2018 to 20 February 2019.

Club licensing regulations

Since the 2018 Malaysia Super League season, as part of the privatization effort, every team in the Liga Super Malaysia must have an FAM Club Licence^[3][4] to play in the league or be relegated. To obtain an FAM Club Licence, teams must be financially healthy and meet certain standards of conduct as organisations.

As in other national leagues, there are significant benefits to being in the top division:

• A greater share of television broadcast licence revenues goes to Liga Super Malaysia sides.
• Greater exposure through television and higher attendance levels helps Liga Super Malaysia teams attract the most lucrative sponsorship.
• Liga Super Malaysia teams develop substantial financial muscle through the combination of television and gate revenues, sponsorship and marketing of their team brands. This allows them to attract and retain skilled players from domestic and international sources and to construct first-class stadium facilities.

Despite several reminders from FAM from the beginning of 2015, however there are few teams failed to get the approval for both AFC and FAM club licenses from First Instance Body (FIB) .^[5][6]

Team(s)	AFC Club License Status	FAM Club License Status
Johor Darul Ta'zim	Passed	Passed
Perak	Passed	Passed
PKNS	Passed	Passed
Pahang	Banned	Passed
Terengganu	Passed	Passed
Kedah	Passed	Passed
Melaka United	Passed	Passed
Selangor	Passed	Passed
PKNP	Failed	Passed
Kuala Lumpur	Failed	Passed
Felda United	N/A	Passed
Petaling Jaya[7]	N/A	Passed

*Updated: 2 January 2019

Team changes

Kelantan and Negeri Sembilan were relegated to 2019 Malaysia Premier League after finished 11th and bottom place of last season league. FELDA United and MISC-MIFA promoted to 2019 Malaysia Super League after securing place as champions and third-place in 2018 Malaysia Premier League.

To Malaysia Super League Promoted from the 2018 Malaysia Premier League FELDA United[8] MISC-MIFA1[7]

From Malaysia Super League Relegated to the 2019 Malaysia Premier League Kelantan Negeri Sembilan

Renamed/Rebranded Clubs

• MISC-MIFA was rebranded to Petaling Jaya City FC,^[7] and located to Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
• Terengganu FA separate and formed Terengganu Football Club.

Notes:

^1 Originally FELCRA were promoted along with FELDA United to the 2019 Malaysia Super League, but after Felcra announced their withdrawal from the Super League participation, MISC-MIFA, the next highest team in the Premier League table, were invited as replacement.^[9]

Clubs locations

Johor Darul Ta'zim

Kedah

Selangor, PKNS

Petaling Jaya City

Kuala Lumpur

Melaka United

Terengganu

Felda United

Perak

PKNP

Pahang

Locations of teams in the 2019 Malaysia Super League.

Venues

Team	Location	Stadium	Capacity
FELDA United	Jengka	Tun Abdul Razak Stadium	25,000
Johor Darul Ta'zim	Johor Bahru	Tan Sri Dato' Haji Hassan Yunos Stadium	30,000[10]
Kedah	Alor Setar	Darul Aman Stadium	32,387[11]
Kuala Lumpur	Kuala Lumpur	Kuala Lumpur Stadium	18,000[12]
Melaka United	Central Melaka	Hang Jebat Stadium	40,000[13]
Pahang	Kuantan	Darul Makmur Stadium	40,000[14]
Perak	Ipoh	Perak Stadium	42,500[15]
Petaling Jaya	Petaling Jaya	Petaling Jaya Stadium	25,000
PKNP	Manjung	Manjung Municipal Council Stadium	15,000
PKNS	Shah Alam	Shah Alam Stadium	80,372[16]
Selangor	Shah Alam	Shah Alam Stadium	80,372
Terengganu	Kuala Terengganu	Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah Stadium	15,000[17]
Source:[18]

Personnel, kit and sponsoring

Team	Head coach	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Main sponsor
FELDA United	Nidzam Jamil	Hadin Azman	FBT	FELDA
Johor Darul Ta'zim	Luciano Figueroa	Hariss Harun	Nike[19]	Forest City
Kedah	Aidil Sharin Sahak	Baddrol Bakhtiar	Lotto[20]	PKNK
Kuala Lumpur	Chong Yee Fatt (caretaker)	Indra Putra Mahayuddin	SkyHawk[permanent dead link][21]	DBKL
Melaka United	Zainal Abidin Hassan	Shukor Adan	Warrix[22]	EDRA, CGN,[23] KLIP
Pahang	Dollah Salleh[24]	Matthew Davies[25]	Umbro	Aras Kuasa
Perak	Mehmet Duraković[26]	Nasir Basharudin[27]	Umbro	Visit Perak
Petaling Jaya	K. Devan	S. Subramaniam	Puma	Qnet
PKNP	Abu Bakar Fadzim[28]	Hafiz Ramdan	Admiral	PKNP, MAPS Perak
PKNS	K. Rajagopal[29]	Akram Mahinan	Lotto	PKNS
Selangor	B. Sathianathan	Amri Yahyah	Joma	Selangor
Terengganu	Nafuzi Zain (caretaker)	Kipré Tchétché	Al-Ikhsan	Terengganu Inc.

Match balls supplied by Nike, this season's version is the Merlin. Referee kits are made by Kronos.

Coaching changes

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Team	Outgoing coach	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Incoming coach	Date of appointment
Kedah	Azzmi Aziz (caretaker)	End of caretaker spell	September 2018	Pre-season	Aidil Sharin	8 October 2018
FELDA United	B. Sathianathan	Resigned	11 October 2018		Nidzam Jamil	12 October 2018
Melaka United	E. Elavarasan	End of contract	November 2018		Zainal Abidin Hassan	14 November 2018
Selangor	Nazliazmi Nasir	Demoted into assistant head coach	23 November 2018		B. Sathianathan[30]	23 November 2018
Kuala Lumpur	Chong Yee Fatt (caretaker)		5 December 2018		Yusri Che Lah[31]	5 December 2018
	Yusri Che Lah	Resigned [32]	11 March 2019	12th	Chong Yee Fatt (caretaker)	11 March 2019
Terengganu	Irfan Bakti		15 May 2019	8th	Nafuzi Zain (caretaker)	15 May 2019

Foreign players

Southeast Asia (SEA) players need to have acquired at least 30 international caps for their senior national team with no period restriction on when caps are earned and those who has less than 30 international caps will be subjected to FMLLP approval.

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one FIFA and non-FIFA nationality.

Team	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3	Asian Player	SEA Player	Former Players 1
FELDA United	Thiago Junio	Jocinei	Kei Ikeda	Masaki Watanabe	Khairul Amri	Jaycee John Quirino
Johor Darul Ta'zim	Maurício	Leandro Velazquez	Diogo	Gonzalo Cabrera	Hariss Harun	Aarón Ñíguez
Kedah	Renan Alves[33]	Jonathan Bauman	Fernando Rodríguez[34][35]	Edgar Bernhardt	Shakir Hamzah[36]	Anmar Almubaraki
Kuala Lumpur	Darko Marković	Paulo Josué	Guilherme	Noh Haeng-Seok	Luke Woodland	Sylvano Comvalius Ryutaro Karube
Melaka United	Dominik Balić	Luka Milunović	Davy Claude Angan	Jang Suk-won	Patrick Reichelt	Darko Marković Liridon Krasniqi Casagrande
Pahang	Hérold Goulon	Lazarus Kaimbi	Dickson Nwakaeme	Safuwan Baharudin	Saddil Ramdani	Zé Love
Perak	Leandro	Careca	Ronaldo	Hussein Eldor		Wander Luiz Gilmar Zac Anderson[37]
Petaling Jaya	Elizeu[38]	Serginho	Brandão	Bae Beom-geun	Pedro Henrique	Giancarlo[39] Joshua Grommen[38] Pedro Henrique
PKNP	Pedro Victor	Ramón da Silva Costa	Giancarlo	Yashir Pinto	Amani Aguinaldo	Kalidou Yero Siyovush Asrorov Thomas Abbey
PKNS	Romel Morales	Gabriel Guerra	Kpah Sherman	Tamirlan Kozubaev	Kittiphong Pluemjai	Chan Vathanaka[40]
Selangor	Endrick	Sandro	Ifedayo Olusegun	Taylor Regan	Michal Nguyễn	Antonio German Rufino Segovia
Terengganu		Lee Tuck[41]	Kipré Tchétché[42]	Sanjar Shaakhmedov	Thierry Bin[41]	Igor Zonjić[41]

• Players name in bold indicates the player is registered during the mid-season transfer window.
• ^1 Foreign players who left their clubs or were de-registered from playing squad due to medical issues or other matters.

Naturalisation players

Club	Player 1	Player 2
Johor Darul Ta'zim	La'Vere Corbin-Ong3 4	Kiko Insa3 4
Kedah	David Rowley3
Kuala Lumpur	Khair Jones3 4
Pahang	Matthew Davies3 4	Mohamadou Sumareh4
Melaka	Wong Tse Yang3
Perak	Brendan Gan3 4
PKNS	Nicholas Swirad3

Notes:

^3 Carrying Malaysian heritage.

^4 Participated in the Malaysia national team squad.

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Johor Darul Ta'zim (C)	22	16	5	1	49	19	+30	53	Qualification for AFC Champions League group stage
2	Pahang	22	12	7	3	37	21	+16	43
3	Selangor	22	10	7	5	41	35	+6	37
4	Kedah[a]	22	9	7	6	37	29	+8	34	Qualification for AFC Champions League preliminary round 2
5	Perak	22	8	9	5	36	31	+5	33
6	Melaka United	22	9	6	7	34	30	+4	33
7	Terengganu	22	7	9	6	35	37	−2	30
8	Petaling Jaya City	22	8	2	12	22	29	−7	26
9	PKNS[b] (R)	22	5	6	11	37	38	−1	21	Relegation to Malaysia Premier League
10	Felda United	22	4	7	11	27	43	−16	19
11	PKNP (R)	22	3	7	12	22	40	−18	16	Relegation to Malaysia Premier League
12	Kuala Lumpur (R)	22	4	2	16	24	49	−25	14

Source: MFL
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Number of goals scored.
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. Kedah FA qualified for the AFC Champions League preliminary round 2 as Malaysia FA Cup winners.
2. PKNS F.C. relegated after withdrawing license to complete for the 2020 Malaysia Premier League season as they become feeder club to Selangor FA.

Result table

Home \ Away	FEL	JDT	KED	KLU	MEL	PAH	PRK	PJC	PKP	PKS	SEL	TFC
FELDA United	—	0–2	5–1	1–1	1–1	1–3	2–3	1–0	1–1	5–4	1–2	1–1
Johor DT	3–1	—	2–0	4–1	2–1	2–0	1–0	0–1	3–0	3–1	3–2	3–3
Kedah	4–0	1–1	—	5–2	2–1	0–0	4–2	3–2	1–1	0–0	1–1	3–0
Kuala Lumpur	0–2	0–4	2–1	—	0–1	1–3	3–3	1–0	4–1	2–1	2–3	1–0
Melaka United	6–0	1–2	1–0	2–0	—	1–1	0–0	2–1	2–1	1–1	3–4	3–3
Pahang	3–1	1–1	1–0	2–0	4–1	—	0–0	1–1	2–0	3–2	1–1	3–0
Perak	1–1	0–3	1–1	2–1	2–3	0–1	—	1–0	3–1	2–2	3–2	3–1
Petaling Jaya	1–0	0–1	0–2	1–0	1–2	2–0	0–1	—	1–0	1–0	1–1	1–2
PKNP	1–1	1–1	0–2	4–0	1–0	0–3	0–4	2–3	—	2–2	1–1	2–2
PKNS	2–0	1–2	2–3	3–2	0–1	1–2	3–3	3–0	1–0	—	2–3	1–2
Selangor	1–1	2–4	3–1	2–1	1–1	5–2	1–1	3–0	2–1	0–4	—	1–0
Terengganu	2–1	2–2	2–2	3–1	3–0	1–1	1–1	3–5	1–2	1–1	1–0	—

Updated to match(es) played on 21 July 2019. Source: FMLLP
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
For upcoming matches, an "a" indicates there is an article about the rivalry between the two participants.

Positions by round

The table lists the positions of teams after each week of matches.
In order to preserve chronological evolvements, any postponed matches are not included to the round at which they were originally scheduled, but added to the full round they were played immediately afterwards.

Team ╲ Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
Johor Darul Ta'zim	4	2	3	2	1	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Pahang	1	1	2	3	2	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Selangor	7	6	9	9	10	8	7	5	4	3	3	4	3	4	5	3	5	4	3	5	4	3
Kedah	2	4	1	1	3	3	3	3	3	4	4	3	4	3	3	4	3	3	4	4	3	4
Perak	10	8	10	10	9	7	8	8	8	8	8	8	6	6	8	6	6	5	6	6	6	5
Melaka United	3	3	4	5	4	5	5	6	6	5	6	6	5	5	4	5	4	6	5	3	5	6
Terengganu	8	11	7	6	6	6	6	7	9	7	7	7	8	8	6	7	7	7	7	7	7	7
Petaling Jaya	9	7	6	7	8	10	9	9	10	10	10	10	9	7	9	9	8	9	9	9	8	8
PKNS	6	9	5	4	5	4	4	4	5	6	5	5	7	9	7	8	9	8	8	8	9	9
FELDA United	5	5	8	8	7	9	10	11	11	12	11	11	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	11	11	10
PKNP	12	10	11	11	11	11	11	10	7	9	9	9	10	10	11	11	11	11	10	10	10	11
Kuala Lumpur	11	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	11	12	12	11	11	10	10	10	10	11	12	12	12

	Leader
	Relegation to 2020 Premier League

Updated to match(es) played on 21 July 2019. Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Season statistics

Top scorers

As of matches played on 21 July 2019.^[43]

Players sorted first by goals, then by last name.

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Kpah Sherman	PKNS	14
2	Diogo	Johor Darul Ta'zim	12
	Ifedayo Olusegun	Selangor
4	Gonzalo Cabrera	Johor Darul Ta'zim	11
5	Patrick Reichelt	Melaka United	10
6	Giancarlo	Petaling Jaya/PKNP	9
	Fernando Rodriguez	Kedah
8	Guilherme de Paula	Kuala Lumpur	8
	Leandro Velázquez	Johor Darul Ta'zim
	Safawi Rasid	Johor Darul Ta'zim
	Sanjar Shaakhmedov	Terengganu

Top assists

As of matches played 21 July 2019.^[44]

Rank	Player	Club	Assists
1	Lee Tuck	Terengganu	7
2	Edgar Bernhardt	Kedah	6
	Romel Morales	PKNS
	Sandro	Selangor
5	Baddrol Bakhtiar	Kedah	5
	Safawi Rasid	Johor Darul Ta'zim
	Diogo	Johor Darul Ta'zim

Clean sheets

As of matches played on 21 July 2019.

Players sorted first by clean sheets, then by last name.

Rank	Player	Club	Clean sheets
1	Ifwat Akmal	Kedah	6
	Helmi Eliza	Pahang
	Khairul Fahmi	Melaka United
	Farizal Marlias	Johor Darul Ta'zim
5	Zarif Irfan	PKNS	5
6	Hafizul Hakim	Perak	4
	Muhaimin Mohamad	PJ City

See also

• 2019 Malaysia Premier League
• 2019 Malaysia M3 League
• 2019 Malaysia M4 League
• 2019 Malaysia FA Cup
• 2019 Malaysia Cup
• 2019 Malaysia Challenge Cup
• 2019 Piala Presiden
• 2019 Piala Belia
• List of Malaysian football first transfers 2019