Kelantan Red Warrior Fc

The registration papers Kelantan Red Warrior FC filed in December 2024 said nothing about inheriting a single trophy. They had to say that, because the club they replaced no longer legally existed: the old Kelantan FA had been thrown out of Malaysian football weeks earlier over unpaid wages and debts run up under owner Norizam Tukiman, who had once delivered the state two Super League titles and a Malaysia Cup. The new entity, pushed through by the Gerakan Selamatkan Kelantan movement under Nik Hafiz Naim Nik Hassan, took the red-and-white colours and the old "Red Warriors" nickname but insisted, in writing, that it owed the previous club nothing. FIFA was not convinced straight away — investigators opened a case in July 2025 to decide whether the new club counted as a "sporting successor" liable for the old debts, and Kelantan Red Warrior played under a temporary registration ban until the ruling went their way.

On the pitch the rebuild has moved fast. The club spent its first season in the Malaysia A1 Semi-Pro League and won promotion to the Super League for 2026–27, with Cameroon forward Emmanuel Mbarga finishing as the division's top scorer on 32 goals. Otis Khan, a Manchester United academy product, arrived to add a different kind of pedigree to the squad Irfan Bakti Abu Salim has built at Sultan Muhammad IV Stadium.

The unresolved argument sits across the state, with Kelantan The Real Warriors, the club Norizam Tukiman formed to keep his Super League place. Both sides play under the same colours and the same claim to Kelantan's football history, and neither has agreed to let the other own it.