Tunku Abdul Rahman - Sports Involvement

Sports Involvement

Being an avid sportsman, Tunku Abdul Rahman was a firm believer that sports can be a good catalyst in bringing about greater social unity among Malaysians of various races and religions. Therefore he supported and initiated many sports events. These included an international football tournament, the Pestabola Merdeka (Independence Football Festival) in 1957. The following year, he was elected as the first president of Asian Football Confederation (AFC), a post he held until 1976.

Tunku also loved horse racing and was a regular at the Selangor Turf Club. He claimed that his lucky number was 13, and that he would win horse races that were held on the 13th of the month, especially on Friday the 13th for him.

In 1977, having acquired substantial shares in The Star, a Penang-based newspaper, Abdul Rahman became the newspaper's Chairman. His columns, "Looking Back" and "As I See It", were critical of the government, and in 1987 Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad banned the newspaper. This led to a split in UMNO, with Abdul Rahman and another former Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn, setting up a new party called UMNO Malaysia, but its registration was quashed by Mahathir Mohamad, who set up his own UMNO Baru ("New UMNO"). Abdul Rahman later supported Semangat 46, a splinter group of UMNO led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. He campaigned actively for the latter in the General election of 1990, but was already in very poor health. The well-educated, visionary Tunku clashes with Mahathir's brand of nationalism that was meant to help the economically and socially stunted Malays of Malaysia (allegedly due to the effect of colonial British 'divide and rule' system).