| Clubname: | Sarawak United |
| Upright: | 0.9 |
| Owntitle: | Owner |
| Owner: | Khairy Ameer Hakim (Kahiry Sarawak Palm SDN BHD) 60% Saran Football Esport Centre (35%) |
| Fullname: | Sarawak United Football Club |
| Short Name: | SUFC |
| Nickname: | The Hornbill |
| Founded: | as Malaysia Malays FA as Selangor Malays FA as Selangor United as Sarawak United |
| Dissolved: | 2024 |
| Ground: | Sarawak Stadium |
| Capacity: | 40,000 |
| Website: | https://sarawakunitedfc.com |
Sarawak United Football Club was a professional football club based in Sarawak, Malaysia. The club didn't compete in the 2023 Malaysia Super League due to failed licensing appeal.
Founded in 1974 as the Malaysia Malays' Football Association football team, the club changed its name to Selangor Malays' Football Association football team when competing in the 2017 Malaysia FAM League season.[1] They were rebranded again as Selangor United for the 2018 Malaysia FAM Cup season.[2] Unfortunately, Selangor United did not last long in the game as the team faced financial difficulties. In 2019, the club was bought over by the FAS and the new owners subsequently rebranded the club as Sarawak United. With FAS buying and rebranding the team, the move was a win-win situation for FAS, because thanks to the move, FAS has made sure that a team representing the Malaysian state of Sarawak is playing in the 2020 Malaysia Premier League. All that happened after the main football team run by FAS to compete in the Malaysia Premier League at the time, known as the Sarawak FA state football team, were relegated to the Malaysian third-tier division, the Malaysia M3 League in 2019.[3] [4] In 2020, the Malaysia Premier League however saw the participation of two Sarawak-based football clubs with Kuching City being promoted to the Malaysia Premier League that year.
See main article: 2020 Sarawak United FC season. The 2020 season was Sarawak United's 1st year in their history and also first season in the Malaysia Premier League. Along with the league, the club also participated in the Malaysia FA Cup but was cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic. On 13 March, it was announced that the 2020 Malaysia Premier League would be suspended indefinitely, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On 1 May, it was announced that the league would resume in September dependent on the situation at the time. Due to time constraints, the home-and-away format for the Premier League has been scrapped. Teams played each other only once. Sarawak United FC finished their 2020 Malaysia Premier League campaign with 3 Win, 2 Draw and 6 Loss after 11 match.
See main article: 2021 Sarawak United FC season.
For the 2021 season the club was strengthened with several well -known players. Among them are Malaysian National player, Norshahrul Idlan and Australian National player, Taylor Regan. The club seen as strong in every position and was selected as the team of choice to be a Champion of 2021 Malaysia Premier League. Sarawak United started the 2021 Malaysia Premier League campaign with a 2–0 victory over Kelantan United. For the 2021 season, Sarawak United team is also the most difficult team to beat by the opposing team. Sarawak United's fort is controlled by an experienced Goalkeeper, Sharbinee Allawee which is not easy to beat. Imported striker from Nigeria, Uche Agba, on the other hand, emerged as the top scorer for Sarawak United.
After 17 matches in the Malaysian Premier League 2021 have been played, Sarawak United was officially promoted and eligible to play in the highest tier of the Malaysian Football League, the 2022 Malaysia Super League.
See main article: 2022 Sarawak United FC season.
Sarawak United was rejected from Malaysia Super League and relegated to M3 League from 2023 season due to failed licensing appeal.
Since the club's foundation in 1974, they had five main crests. The first colours of the club crest were green and red. For the 2021 Malaysia Premier League season, the team's outfield players wore black shirts, red shorts and red socks for the club's home matches.
Sarawak United used a crest which was seen as a modified version of the Football Association of Sarawak (FAS) crest for the 2020 Malaysia Premier League season. However, in 2021, Sarawak United changed the team's crest which was more reflective of the ethnic characteristics of Sarawak, although the Golden Hornbill remained the symbol of choice.
| Year(s) | Manufacturer | |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Line 7 | |
| 2017 | Kappa | |
| 2018 | SkyHawk | |
| 2019 | Sportrevo | |
| 2020–2022 | Joma | |
| 2023–2024 | AL Sports |
Sarawak State Stadium is located in an area of 5 hectares in Petra Jaya. Officially opened in 1989, it was the largest stadium in Malaysia at that point of time. The stadium can accommodate 26,000 spectators at a time. It has been used to host Sarawak FA home matches.
| Season | League | Cup | Asia | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Charity | Malaysia | Challenge | FA | Competition | Result | |||||||||||||
| 2020 | Malaysia Premier League | 11 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 16 | -2 | 11 | 10th | – | Cancelled | – | Cancelled | – | ||||
| 2021 | 20 | 11 | 5 | 4 | 37 | 14 | 23 | 38 | 2nd | – | Quarter-final | – | Cancelled | – | |||||
| 2022 | Malaysia Super League | 22 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 19 | 50 | -31 | 17 | 11th | – | Round of 16 | – | Second round | – | – | |||
| 2023 | M3 League | 24 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 18 | 80 | -62 | 4 | 12th | – | – | – | – | – | – | |||
| Season | Player | Goals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 |  Patrick Wleh | 5 | |
| 2021 | Uche Agba | 19 | |
| 2022 | Boris Kok | 4 |
| Season | Player 1 | Player 2 | Player 3 | Player 4 | Player 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 Malaysia Premier League |  Demerson |  Gabriel Guerra | Patrick Wleh | Milad Zanidpour | Nicolás Marotta |
| 2021 Malaysia Premier League |  Taylor Regan | Sandro |  Lee Chang-hoon | Uche Agba | |
| 2022 Malaysia Super League | Gonzalo Soto | Francis Koné | Lee Chang-hoon | Uche Agba | Boris Kok |
| Name | From | To | Honours | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Juan Carlos Magro | December 2019 | March 2020 | — | |
 E. Elavarasan | March 2020 | February 2022 | 2021 Malaysia Premier League runner-up | |
| B. Sathianathan (Interim) | March 2022 | July 2022 | — | |
| S. Balachandran | July 2022 | May 2023 | — | |
| May 2023 | Dec 2023 | — |
Runners-up (1): 2021