A draft regarding regional associations to be created under the Football Association of Maldives (FAM) has been included in tonight's Extraordinary Congress (ExCo) for it to be passed.

The ExCo passed the motion to create four regional associations under FAM on 4th June during the ExCo meeting. Tonight's congress will see the ExCo's decision be passed.

According to the order of the draft agenda sent to the clubs, a congress vote regarding amendment submissions to the association's basic regulations will take place before the agenda in creating regional associations.

FAM has not shared any details regarding the congress's agenda. They have not stated to the media what the changes to the regulations will be either.

It can be theorized that the amendments to the regulations will relate to the facilitation of creating regional associations.

Before the ExCo's decision in creating sub-associations under FAM, FAM had split Maldives into four zones before the previous season began, and a qualification tournament for the Dhivehi Premier League (DPL) was held between the four zones.

The four regional zones are the North Zone, Central Zone, South Zone and Male' Zone. The sub-associations will be created within these zones.

In an interview given to Mihaaru News earlier this month, FAM's General Secretary Ahmed Zareer said the creation of regional associations is the foundation of decentralization for Maldivian football.

"The election of who will run the associations and all related matters will be decided by the region's islands. The first thing that is needed is financial support. But after that, funds will be generated by the associations themselves," said Zareer.

Prior to last year's election, current President of FAM Ahmed Thoriq's team submitted a proposal to the previously approved regulation regarding the creation of regional associations under FAM.

Nevertheless, during former President of FAM Bassam Adeel Jaleel's term, the topic of regional associations were included in the regulations but did not see any follow through from FAM, which led to representatives of FIFA going against the articles being repeated in the regulations.

When Thoriq made those amendment submissions, FAM was in a FIFA normalization stage for one year.

The creation of regional associations were not included in the permanent articles of the regulation that were passed in June 2025, but were included as amendments in the provisional section of the regulation.

The responsibility of making the temporary amendments permanent falls to the current ExCo, which will have its one-year anniversary tomorrow.

In the FAM's regulations that were passed in May 2016, the creation of regional associations and other sub-associations were included in the regulation. Bassam, who was the previous General Secretary of FAM, was elected as President of FAM after the second election that took place under the regulation in November 2016.

However, the effort did not see any progress even after the completion of his first four-year term.

Bassam was re-elected for a second term during the July 2022 election. The regulation saw an amendment where articles related to the creation of regional associations and sub-associations were removed from the regulation.

At the time, Bassam said the National Sports Council had stated it was not possible for an association to create other associations, and that it can only be done if FAM becomes a federation.

Bassam, who is currently serving a prison sentence for fraud, corruption and money laundering, said at the time that FAM can be turned into a federation once permission is granted from official sports institutions.