Dr Muhammed Shams-Ud-Dean Sahu Khan who died in New Zealand this week at the age of 81 loved the soccer game so much that he dedicated a good part of his life towards the administration of Fiji Football Association.
He was President of Fiji FA for 26 years, from 1985 to 2011, after serving as the Vice President from 1971 to 1985.
He was a shrewd and astute man and had the ability to make decisions on the spot.
I served in FM96 radio and Fiji Broadcasting Corporation radio from 1993 to 1999 and dealt with Doc on many occasions, having a mixture of good and bad memories over these years.
At a time when there was no mobile phone, he was very accessible to the media – always ready to get on the landline phone at his law office in Ba.
When the media had a controversial soccer story, Doc knew what answers to give.
He was a lawyer, after all, and a qualified Doctor of Philosophy.
Fiji soccer was his love and he would go to any length to protect its image and the biggest test was thrown at him late 1994 and into early 1995 when Ba Football Association led a revolt against Fiji FA that gave birth to the Fiji National Soccer Association.
Abetted by his then trusted lieutenant, the late Jitendra Maharaj as Fiji FA secretary, Doc took on some of the greats of Ba Football Association, including businessman Vinod Patel, lawyers and prominent Ba supporters.
Remember, Doc was also from Ba.
The media had a field day with the to and from attacks from the Fiji FA and FNSA camps that were juicy news content.
The matter ended up in the High Court in Lautoka and one day the trial judge was informed FM96 had a recording of an interview with Doc that was in contempt of the trial.
The judge requested the recording and in open court; the interview was played back to Doc.
Doc was reprimanded by the judge and told not to preempt the outcome of the court case via media interviews.
Naturally, Doc was unhappy and the next time our paths crossed, he blasted, “I will sue you under the Communications Act”. He never did.
A few weeks later, all was good between us.
Then came a day when then Sports Minister James Ah Koy was holding a mediation meeting between the Fiji FA and FNSA at a hotel in Nadi.
It was a Saturday and as the meeting ended, the late Jitendra Maharaj spotted me and had issues with a report I had filed earlier in the day.
I could hear swear words and saw him pick up an eating fork from a table and lurch towards me.
Doc came in between me and the stocky Maharaj and said JD, JD no, no.
Mr Maharaj stopped.
It was the Fiji FA vs FNSA saga in 1995 that brought cash prize-money to the Inter-District Championship and later to all other Fiji FA tournaments.
One day Doc had called our Lautoka office and summoned me urgently to his office in Ba because he wanted to give me an exclusive story.
Arriving into his office, there were building and structural plans of some sort laid out in front of him.
This is the future of soccer, he said.
He showed me plans for a state-of-the-art soccer stadium that he wanted built in Ba.
He was blushing and quite happy that such a project would be undertaken by his leadership.
It will have digital sponsorship signage all around the ground, he said, with the project having the blessing of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
Alas, that project never came to fruition.
His ability to deal with people who thought they had Doc in a corner would get him to succumb to their demand, had many soccer administrators in Fiji receiving his version of “I told you to agree to this, now take this”.
It had rained cats and dogs at Govind Park during an Inter-District Championship and after a few senior games on the morning of the first day, the ground had become water-logged.
Fiji FA stopped matches on the main ground to allow the ground to dry, when officials from Rakiraki barged onto him, demanding to know why their match has been shifted to an outside ground.
They wanted to play on the main ground, the Rakiraki officials demanded and Doc reasoned with them, but to no avail.
Finally, he told the Rakiraki officials to go and he will make a decision soon that will be relayed to them.
As the Rakiraki team relaxed in their camp, came the news that they will play on the main Govind Park ground, after the completion of the Super Premier games for the day.
As Ba Town Council employees cleaned the park at around 11pm, the Rakiraki soccer team took to the field to play their game. Doc had fulfilled their desire to play on the main ground.
We at FM96 and Navtarang radio stations had the chance to uplift the standard of soccer commentaries on the radio when the cord-less microphone came to Fiji and our former boss Matai Akouala was the first to trial it at a tournament.
The roving reporter would carry the mobile microphone around the stadium and bring another angle to coverage to live commentaries that included speaking to coaches on the bench as goals were scored.
It was going all fine until, in these live interviews, not happy with how the referee was handling the game that resulted in goals, coaches started stacking the man with the whistle live on radio.
It became a headache for Fiji Football Association as some comments bordered on disciplinary action.
Seeing this trend and the possibility more and more coaches will get into trouble for making comments with a live microphone shoved into their face, Doc put a stop to it.
Go speak to the spectators and come and speak to me, he said.
Go the coaches and the team officials after the game ends were his edict.
One morning after speaking to him about a different story, he hinted there will be a bigger story later in the day and that I had to go the Nadi airport and hung up.
The journalist in me went to work and the urge to find out led me to call the then secretary of Fiji FA, the late Jitendra Maharaj (JD). He too was evasive when I told him Doc had asked me to go to the airport.
Bursting into a laugh, JD said that I should do that and added, “go and look at some new hairstyles”.
The Fiji FA had ordered the national soccer team, with very prominent players, to return home from Australia after they broke camp and went out clubbing.
And yes, some had coloured hair and fancy cuts, which later was revealed was the work of barbers on Kings Cross.
All in all, Doc governed Fiji FA with an iron fist.
At another tournament in Ba, the referee called off a game after torrential rain and Doc came on the public address system to announce the matches are being called off because of bad weather.
There was booing from the public, and Doc was heard saying “should I apologise” on the live microphone as he consulted another official.
He didn’t apologise – he never did in all the years I knew him.
That’s how confident he was of the decisions he made as Fiji FA president for 26 years.