The Football Association of Maldives has recently announced that they have changed the structure allowing the second division champions once again to play in the Male’ League starting from next year.

FAM changed the football format last year introducing a Male’ league qualification round for the top two teams from 2^nd Division and the bottom four teams of Male' League to battle for spots in Male League next year. FAM’s plan didn’t work out as they hoped when the second division teams did not participate in the qualification round saying they did not have the budget to spend for players and the qualification round. To avoid such problems in future, FAM has decided to once again promote the second division champions to the Male' league without any qualification rounds.

During the press to launch FAM’s calendar for 2018, FAM’s General Secretary Hussain Javaz said that while the champions of second division get promoted to Male’ League, Runner-Ups of second division would have to face the bottom two of Male’ League next season in a two-leg qualification round.

FAM’s Technical Director, Ihsan Abdul Ghani (Saanthi) stated that the change in structure has been made after analyzing this year’s experience. He also said that this change would make the race for second division’s title fiercer and it would result in intense competition between first division clubs as well.

Photo: VNews