Sabah F.C. (Malaysia)

Sabah Football Club (Malay: Kelab Bolasepak Sabah) is a Malaysian professional football club owned by the Sabah Football Club Sdn Bhd. The club represents the state of Sabah in Borneo, and competes in the Malaysia Super League, the top tier of Malaysian football. Their home matches are played at the 35,000-capacity Likas Stadium in Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah.
Sabah FA (at that time) won the Malaysia FA Cup in 1995, the Malaysian Premier League (top tier) in 1996, and the Malaysia Premier League (second tier) in 2019. In 1995, Sabah FA also advanced to the second round of the Asian Cup Winners' Cup after defeating An Giang of V. League 3–1 on aggregate. They lost to Bellmare Hiratsuka (now Shonan Bellmare) of J1 League 1–7 on aggregate.
Until 2021, Sabah FA, also known as Sabah FA State Football Team, was one of the 14 state teams in the Malaysian football system. It was funded and managed by the SAFA. However, the Malaysian football league mandated that all the top two leagues must be professional, leading to the privatisation of SAFA.
From the 1950s until 1963, Sabah competed as North Borneo football team in the Borneo Cup together with Sarawak football team and Brunei national football team. Following the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, the North Borneo Football Association (NBFA) changed its name to Sabah Football Association (Sabah FA). Sabah qualify into the Malaysia Cup for the first time in 1977 and enter the competition in 1978.
Sabah was a well known team during the Malaysian football amateur and semi-pro era and produced many quality players, namely the trio of James Wong, Hassan Sani and Peter Rajah. These players led Sabah to become one of Malaysian football's most feared teams during the 80's. One fine example was during the 1979 Malaysian League where Sabah started slowly. After a run of 8 matches, they stood with 3 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses, but during the later stages they stepped up by winning all remaining matches, most of them by huge margins including an incredible 8–0 thrashing of Sarawak, 11–0 hammering of Perak and the 6–1 beating of Terengganu. At the end of the season, Sabah finished as runners-up behind Singapore and became the highest scoring team with 49 goals in 12 games. In 1991, Sabah striker Matlan Marjan became the first Malaysian to score a double against England in 'A' international matches.
When professional football was introduced by Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), Sabah made a reputation of being one of the Malaysian League's most competitive sides. Quality players were produced from the ranks during the 1990s, most notably Matlan who helped Sabah finish as runners-up during 1993 and 1994 Malaysia FA Cup, and who at one time was appointed as the national team captain by Claude Le Roy. The positive results were cut short by the match fixing scandal in 1994. Matlan was the one of several players found guilty. As a punishment for their involvement in match fixing, he and the other players were banned for life by FIFA and banished from the state of Sabah under the Restricted Residence Act. After the scandal, Sabah began its rebuilding process. Sabah won their first professional trophy, the FA Cup 1995. In the 1996 season, Sabah won their first league title and went through to the final of the Cup for the first time, but were beaten by Selangor on penalties. Sabah then reached the final of the 1998 Malaysia FA Cup. The 2000 season could be considered as Sabah's worst since joining the Malaysian professional league as they were relegated to the second division, and could not get past the group stages of the Malaysia Cup. However, Sabah quickly regained its performance in the 2001 season where they finished as runners-up behind Johor FC. In the 2002 season, Sabah was lining up players of calibre such as Zainizam Marjan, Khairul Azman Mohamed and Josiah Seton, finishing third in the league and again managed to get through to the final of Malaysia Cup by beating Selangor Public Bank and Perak. Sabah however finished as runners-up yet again by losing to the same team that beat them in 1996 final, Selangor. This time, Sabah lost by golden goal scored by Amri Yahyah. In 2003, Sabah again finished third in Liga Premier One. They reached the final of Malaysia Cup. This time they lost to club-side Selangor MPPJ by 0–3, with hat-trick from Juan Manuel Arostegui.
When the Malaysia Super League (MSL) was introduced in 2004, Sabah struggled to be competitive against other teams in the top league. Sabah only managed to stay in Super League for two seasons as they were relegated to the Malaysia Premier League (MPL) in 2005. After the relegation, Sabah continued to struggle for promotion. They lost to Pahang in the 2007 season play-off.
After 6 years in the 2nd tier MPL, Australian Gary Phillips was able to guide Sabah to promotion in 2010 – his first season in charge. After poor results which have affected Sabah's performance in 2011, Gary Phillips was replaced by Justin Ganai to save Sabah from relegation zone. Justin improved Sabah performance in 2011 Malaysia Cup where the team reached the quarterfinals. He was retained as for the 2012 season but step down eventually. Sabah got relegated back to the MPL after lost to Kedah. Salt was added to the wound as the relegation was followed by them failing to qualify to the group stage of the 2012 Malaysia Cup.
Sabah started their 2013 season back in the MPL as their main defenders Ronny Harun and Mafry Balang left and Rozaimi Abdul Rahman was loaned out to Harimau Muda A. 2013 season was led by Northern Irishman David McCreery and they end up in 5th place, but lost the Malaysia Cup play-off 0–4 to Negeri Sembilan at Shah Alam Stadium. McCreery left at the end of the season. The year 2014 saw a major changes in the team's sponsorship by which local brand Carino was signed as their kit supplier and Ararat Sports plus BSA as their sponsor. During this season, former Sabah player Milomir Šešlija become their head coach, replacing McCreery in the hot seat. They finished 8th out of 12 in the MPL, missed the Malaysia Cup group stage for third consecutive seasons and also got out of the FA Cup in the early stage.
Just after 2014 season finished, another major change was made by which George O'Callaghan was signed as their technical director. Sabah FA successfully signed twice African Player of The Year El Hadji Diouf and his compatriot Abdoulaye Faye, followed by Irish-born Libyan footballer, Éamon Zayed and Singaporean Fazrul Nawaz. Fazrul and O'Callaghan were released early in the season few weeks before Malaysia Premier League kick off. Fazrul was replaced by Joel Chianese during the mid-season transfer window, and O'Callaghan by Brisbane Roar ex-coach Mike Mulvey in February 2015. Diouf's dissatisfaction grew with Sabah FA management plans, along with his dismissal during few of Sabah's matches thus allowing youngster Leopold Alphonso and Rawilson Batuil to play. Promising start of 2015 season ended with disappointment at 7th place, missing Malaysia Cup automatic slot. TC Goh, Mulvey and big name players such as Diouf, Zayed, Faye, Chianese and Rozaimi Abdul Rahman left at the end of the season due to no contract renewal.
Following much efforts and various reorganisation made on the team, Sabah FA was crowned as the champion of the 2019 Malaysia Premier League for the first time since they last lifted the old first division title back in 1996. Having early secured various imports such as Brazilian Luiz Júnior, South Korean Park Tae-soo and Serbian Luka Milunović, Aguinaldo da Veiga, Ahmet Ataýew, Rodoljub Paunović and various local talents, the team was able to win 13 from a total of 19 matches, qualifying for the 2020 Malaysia Super League.
Starting from the 2021 season, all clubs competing in the Malaysia Super League must be privatised as required by the FAM. Sabah Football Club Sdn Bhd was formed in order to fulfill the condition. Verdon Bahanda was appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the club on 12 November 2020. Therefore, Sabah FA was renamed to Sabah F.C. as the new club name, and the rhino once again became the official mascot of the club.
Sabah finished in third place of the 2022 Malaysia Super League, which saw them returning to the continental club competition since 1995–96 and making their debut in the 2023–24 AFC Cup in the group H with Haiphong, Hougang United and PSM Makassar. On 21 September, they played their first fixture against Hougang United in a 3–1 home win. In the next fixture, Sabah faced PSM Makassar away, where they won 5–0 with Saddil Ramdani bagging a hat-trick of assists. Their journey ended in the ASEAN Zonal semi-final, where they faced Macarthur FC and were ultimately defeated 0–3.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
In November 2020 following the privatisation of the club, Sabah FC displayed the club's new official logo which was chosen following a competition. During the time, Sabah Football Club Sdn Bhd in its statement informed that the logo was created by an individual named Firzaruddin Zainal Abiddin. Apart from fulfilling the design requirements, the logo was chosen by the most fans.
Likas Stadium is the current official main home ground for Sabah FC. It has a capacity of 22,000, making it the 8th largest football stadium in Malaysia in terms of seating capacity. It has been the home stadium of Sabah FC since its opening in 1983.
Sabah FA first mascot was the rhino since mid-1990s. In 2010 the SAFA rebranded the mascot to hawk. which was controversial as Kuala Lumpur FA at that time was also known as the Hawks. Sabah FA reinstated the Rhino mascot starting from 2015. In 2019, Sabah FA once again rebranded the mascot as Tambadau. During 2021 privatisation process, Sabah FC was chosen as the new club name and rhino once again became the official mascot.
Sabah FC neighbouring rival was Sarawak United, and Kuching City matches referred to as the Borneo Derby.
Radio coverages regular season matches on Sabah FM 89.9 in Malay language.
Note:
1st or Champions 2nd or Runner-up 3rd place Relegation
Source:
The following coaches won at least one trophy when in charge of Sabah:
Notable former players of Sabah F.C. who have earned senior international caps for their respective nations: