KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Annuar Musa (pic) said he was not involved in the decision-making process in granting sponsorship to the Kelantan football team.

Annuar, who is currently on a full-paid leave as Mara chairman, said this was the explanation he gave to the Mara internal audit committee on Tuesday.

Mara is currently conducting an internal audit into allegations of misappropriation and abuse of power by Annuar.

“I was not involved in any decision-making, negotiation or giving direction as alleged,” he told reporters at his Mara office after a two-hour inquiry with the committee.

He further explained that it was not a “sponsorship”, but a “commercial deal”, which was a different concept altogether.

He added that he was only in charge of approving the budget for branding and marketing to promote the Red Warriors football team.

Annuar also said the decisions to approve the commercial deals for Pelaburan Mara Bhd (PMB) and Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) to advertise their brands on the Red Warriors’ jerseys were made by their respective marketing teams.

“I never instructed anyone in Mara – especially to use education funds – to sponsor the team.

“In fact, they (the marketing administrative teams) were transparent in their decision, it was in black and white, and I had no hand in this,” said Annuar.

The former Kelantan Football Association (Kafa) president, however, claimed that the team was “shortchanged” by Mara and PMB, because they were only paid a fraction of the original amount.

For instance, PMB only paid RM200,000 for the RM700,000 in advertising value placed on the jersey.

“This is the administration’s job, which I wasn’t involved in. Yes, we were shortchanged, but this was based on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis. I know this is not fair.

“But we have to be supportive of the Government bodies,” he said.

Annuar said this concept of commercial deals had been around for the past decade and never posed a problem before.

“When the Johor crown prince brought this up, no one dared to say that he was wrong. I am not planning to bring this to court as I consider it polemics,” he said.

Asked on his status as Mara chairman, Annuar said this will be decided by Rural and Regional Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri once the investigation is concluded.

The issue that Mara subsidiaries had allegedly been financing Kafa first came to light when Johor crown prince Tunku Ismail Tunku Ibrahim claimed that a certain “Tan Sri” had forced Mara and its entities to sponsor the Kelantan football team.

In a Facebook post on Jan 12, he also published photographs of documents showing a RM500,000 sponsorship by UniKL and an additional RM200,000 by PMB.

Although no individual was mentioned, it was an apparent reference to Annuar, who was also a former Kafa president.

Annuar, who is Ketereh MP, still holds the position of Umno information chief.-thestar