Merdeka Tournament

Merdeka Tournament (Malay: Pestabola Merdeka) is an international friendly football tournament held in Malaysia to commemorate the Independence Day. It is mainly played at Independence Stadium, in Kuala Lumpur.^[1] "Merdeka" is the Malay word for independence. As of 2024, the tournament has been held 43 times, though with decreasing frequency in recent decades.

Merdeka Football Tournament

Organising body	FAM
Founded	1957; 68 years ago (1957)
Region	International
Number of teams	Varied (4 in 2024)
Current champions	Malaysia (13th title)
Most successful team(s)	Malaysia (13 titles)
2025 Merdeka Tournament

The Merdeka Tournament is the oldest invitational football tournament in Asia, and the matches in the tournament are considered International "A" matches (Friendly match) by FIFA.^[2]

History

The winner of the second season of Merdeka Cup in 1958, Malaya football team, five years before the merger to form Malaysia. Also in the picture is Tunku Abdul Rahman (centre), the first Prime Minister of Malaya, and at that time president of Football Association of Malaya & Asian Football Confederation.^[3][4]

The Merdeka Tournament is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957.^[5][6][7][8] 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.^[9][10] 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.^[11] 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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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 and AFC Asian Cup.^[14]

The first edition of the tournament was held in August and September 1957 with British Hong Kong emerging inaugural champions.^[15] However, from then on it was purely dominated by Malaysia, South Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia and a host of other countries, including South American and European clubs.^[16]

Malaysia/Malaya exclusively lifted the trophy ten times, emerged runners-up on eight occasions, and in addition shared the winner’s rostrum twice with South Korea (1960 and 1979), while South Korean sides have won it seven times.

Indonesia, Taiwan and Myanmar hold multi-winning accolades. The other champions were Morocco (1980), New Zealand (2000), Uzbekistan (2001), Czechoslovakia Olympic (1987) and Austria’s with their SK Admira Wacker (1991), German Hamburger SV (1988), Argentinian Buenos Aires 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 and India.

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 edition, where higher-ranked teams received a bye in the semi-final, and only waiting in the finals.^[17]

List of finals

Merdeka Tournament logo in 2013.

Below are the list of Merdeka Football Tournament finals since 1957.^[18][19]

Ed.	Year	Winners	Score	Runners-up
1	1957	Hong Kong League XI[a]	Round-robin	Indonesia
2	1958	Malaya	Round-robin	Hong Kong League XI[a]
3	1959	Malaya	Round-robin	India
4	1960	Malaya and  South Korea	0–0[b]	—
5	1961	Indonesia	2–1	Malaya
6	1962	Indonesia	2–1	Pakistan
7	1963	Taiwan[a]	Round-robin	Japan
8	1964	Burma	1–0	India
9	1965	South Korea and  Taiwan[a]	1–1[b]	—
10	1966	South Vietnam	1–0	Burma
11	1967	Burma and  South Korea[c]	0–0[b]	—
12	1968	Malaysia	3–0	Burma
13	1969	Indonesia	3–2	Malaysia
14	1970	South Korea	1–0	Burma
15	1971	Burma	1–0	Indonesia
16	1972	South Korea	2–1	Malaysia
17	1973	Malaysia	3–1	Kuwait
18	1974	Malaysia	1–0	South Korea B
19	1975	South Korea	1–0	Malaysia
20	1976	Malaysia	2–0	Japan
21	1977	South Korea	1–0	Iraq
22	1978	South Korea	2–0	Iraq
23	1979	Malaysia and South Korea B	0–0[b]	—
24	1980	Morocco	2–1	Malaysia
25	1981	Iraq	1–0	São Paulo XI
26	1982	Santa Catarina XI	3–0	Ghana
27	1983	Buenos Aires XI	2–1	Algeria XI
28	1984	South Korea B	2–0	Minas Gerais XI
29	1985	South Korea B	7–4 (a.e.t.)	America Rio de Janeiro
30	1986	Malaysia	3–0	Czechoslovakia XI
31	1987	Czechoslovakia Olympic	3–2	South Korea
32	1988	Hamburger SV	1–0	Tirol Innsbruck
33	1991	Admira Wacker	3–0	China Olympic Team
34	1993	Malaysia	3–1	South Korea
35	1995	Iraq	2–0	Budapesti Vasas
36	2000	New Zealand	2–0	Malaysia
37	2001	Uzbekistan	2–1	Bosnia and Herzegovina
38	2006	Myanmar	2–1	Indonesia
39	2007	Malaysia U-23	3–1	Myanmar
40	2008	Vietnam U-22	0–0 (6–5 (p))	Malaysia
41	2013	Malaysia U-23	2–0	Myanmar U-23
42	2023	Tajikistan	2–0	Malaysia
43	2024	Malaysia	1–0	Lebanon

Records and statistics

Performance by nations

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

#	Team	Titles	Runners-up	Total
1	Malaysia[d]	13[e]	8	20
2	South Korea[f]	11[g]	3	14
3	Myanmar[h]	4[i]	5	9
4	Indonesia	3	3	6
5	Iraq	2	2	4
6	Taiwan[a]	2[i]	0	2
	Vietnam[j]	2	0	2
8	Hong Kong League XI[a]	1	1	2
	Czechoslovakia[k]	1	1	2
10	Morocco	1	0	1
	New Zealand	1	0	1
	Uzbekistan	1	0	1
	Tajikistan	1	0	1
14	India	0	2	2
	Japan	0	2	2
16	Pakistan	0	1	1
	Kuwait	0	1	1
	Ghana	0	1	1
	Algeria XI	0	1	1
	China Olympic Team	0	1	1
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1	1
	Lebanon	0	1	1

Performance by state or club teams

Below are the records of state or clubteams since 1957.

#	Team	Titles	Runners-up	Total
1	Santa Catarina XI	1	0	1
	Buenos Aires XI	1	0	1
	Hamburger SV	1	0	1
	SK Admira Wacker	1	0	1
5	São Paulo XI	0	1	1
	Minas Gerais XI	0	1	1
	America Rio de Janeiro	0	1	1
	Tirol Innsbruck	0	1	1
	Budapesti Vasas	0	1	1

All-time top scorers

#	Player	Team	Matches	Goals	Ratio	Ref.
1	Mokhtar Dahari	Malaysia	50	36	0.72	[20]
2	Kunishige Kamamoto	Japan	18	22	1.22	[21]
3	Abdul Kadir	Indonesia	36	22	0.61	[22]
4	Cha Bum-kun	South Korea	34	21	0.62	[23]
5	Abdul Ghani Minhat	Malaysia	32	19	0.60	[24]

Top scorers

Year	Player	Team	Goals
1986	Krishanu Dey Zainal Abidin Hassan	India  Malaysia	6
1987	Václav Daněk	Czechoslovakia Olympic	6
1988	Peter Pacult	Tirol Innsbruck	5
1991	Ernst Ogris	SK Admira Wacker	4
1993	Petar Aleksandrov	Aarau	4
1995	Lee Woo-young	South Korea B	3
2000	Chris Killen	New Zealand	3
2001	Bakhtiyor Hamidullaev Husain Ali	Uzbekistan  Bahrain	3
2006	Indra Putra Mahayuddin	Malaysia	3
2007	Safee Sali	Malaysia U-23	4
2008	Safee Sali (2)	Malaysia	5
2013	Rozaimi Rahman	Malaysia U-23	3
2023	8 players	India  Malaysia  Tajikistan	1
2024	5 players	Lebanon  Malaysia  Philippines	1

Notes

1. Hong Kong sent its team that consisted of players that represented Republic of China (Taiwan) or Hong Kong from 1957 to 1961. From 1963 to 1968, the team officially represented Republic of China (Taiwan) but was composed of Hong Kong-based Republic of China international footballers; From 1965 onwards, Hong Kong and Taiwan's national teams also participated.
2. Title was shared after match finished in a draw
3. Represented by Yangzee FC
4. includes results representing  Malaya and Malaysia national under-23 football team
5. Includes two shared titles.
6. includes results representing South Korea B and South Korea U-23
7. Includes four shared titles.
8. includes results representing  Burma and Myanmar national under-22 football team
9. Include one shared title.
10. includes results representing  South Vietnam and the Vietnam national under-23 football team
11. includes results representing Czechoslovakia Olympic football team