(Left) Butler being welcomed by Annuar after the signing ceremony at his home in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur, Tuesday. The four players who also signed their contracts yesterday are (third from left) Md Daudsu Jamaluddin, Md Khalid Jamlus, Azlan Ahmad and Md Norfarhan Mohd.

Premier League will only kick off in 10 week times, but Kelantan now have 18 players in their ranks. Last Monday, as rumours they fulfilled a deal with Englishman Peter Butler as head coach and added four fresh players to the team to face new season.

Their new signings were ex- internationals Khalid Jamlus and Azlan Ahmad from Perak and national players Mohd Daudsu Jamaluddin from Johor FC and Mohd Norfarhan Mohd from Terengganu.

The Kelantan FA (Kafa) head, Tan Sri Annuar Musa, believed that the moment had come for them to stand up and be counted among the elite teams. Now, Kelantan have set an ambitious goal to win their first major silverware next season.

“We have almost everything in place in administration, finance, players, team management and the fan support to get the job done,” he said.

The 42-year-old Butler is no stranger to Malaysian football. The former West Ham midfielder was with Sabah for two seasons from 2003.

With Kelantan, he will also oversee the Under-20 back-up squad and Kafa Academy for players between 13 and 14-year-old.

“We don’t have a rich football culture like Selangor, Perak or Kedah. In fact, we have never won any major titles from the mainstream competitions in Malaysian football. The only successes we have enjoyed were from the Sultan’s Gold Cup and age-group competitions. It’s okay for us to have this big dream now. It makes us work much harder in chasing it.” he said.

Annuar said that Kelantan would continue to take help of their well-built home fan support, which saw them chalk up a 100% win record at the Sultan Mohd IV Stadium in Kota Baru last season.

“We sold tickets at RM5, the lowest in the country last season but still ended up with a profit. We collected about RM1.7mil from our home matches. It was far better than the 2006 season when the collection was less than RM100,000.

With the profit we made, we even paid up part of the the debts left behind by the previous management. We did the right thing because we wanted the crowd. Kafa has an ambition to bring about positive results and I am sure the fans will give us their full support.”