The Brunei State Football Amateur Association was formed on 15 March 1956. In 1993, the word "Amateur" was dropped, and they were known as the Brunei Football Association. Brunei's experience of international football has been more or less restricted to regional Asian competitions, such as the Southeast Asian Games and the AFF Championship. So far, Brunei has entered the FIFA World Cup qualifiers only four times, in 1986, 2002, 2018 and 2022. On these occasions, they did not qualify for the competition. They have made five appearances in the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, but they have never passed the first qualification round.[5]
History
Early days
Brunei national football team of 18 players and 4 officers posed for a photo together with Mohd Yusof at Berakas Airport in 1970
The national team's first appearance took place during the 1972 AFC Asian Cup qualification, where they were unable to qualify after all three heavy defeats.[6] The following two championships (1976 and 1977) were no different from the first, with their first and second victory during the 1980 Summer Olympics.[7] In 1979, Brunei entered a team to compete in the professional Malaysian league and despite competing against Malaysian clubs, Brunei had previously never made an impact.[8] However, in 1999, they shocked everyone by lifting the Malaysia Cup.[9]
Brunei won their first and only Brunei Merdeka Games trophy in 1985.[10] Since then, team was not able to qualify into or win any major tournaments. Coming the closest was the 1993 Philippines International Cup, where they came in third position after a 1–0 victory against the Philippines.[11] Brunei was then invited for the inaugural 2006 AFC Challenge Cup held in Bangladesh being grouped with Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal. Brunei narrowly lost to Sri Lanka 1–0 before bouncing back from their defeat in the second match winning against Nepal 2–1 however with them needing the win in the last fixture, Brunei ended up in a goalless draw crashing out from the cup splitting the same points as Nepal but on goal differences.
Suspension
In September 2009, the Brunei Football Association (BAFA) was suspended due to governmental interference in its affairs, which started with a decision by the Brunei authorities to dissolve BAFA and to replace it with a new federation in December 2008.[12][13] The suspension was applied with immediate effect and meant that the Brunei club DPMM were no longer permitted to play in the Singapore S.League until it was resolved.[14] DPMM FC has confirmed to Football Association of Singapore (FAS) that they are unable to finish their S.League season because of the issue with its association. FIFA rejected FAS's final request on 17 October 2009 to permit DPMM to compete in the current S.League season while BAFA's suspension persisted.[15]
On 19 March 2010, the FIFA Executive Committee agreed to submit to the next FIFA Congress the expulsion of the association if the BAFA has not been reinstated by then, after noting that no major progress had been made since the BAFA was suspended in September 2009. FIFA warned that unless BAFA came to FIFA's Congress on 9 and 10 June in South Africa having met the conditions for reinstatement it would be expelled.[16] Brunei were re-instated on 31 May 2011 and the National Football Association of Brunei Darussalam (NFABD) was formed that same year.[17]
Under new coach Mario Rivera, Brunei managed to qualify to the 2022 AFF Championship for the first time in 26 years since its inaugural edition in 1996, by defeating Timor-Leste 6–3 on aggregate.[24] The Wasps were grouped with Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Cambodia.[25] They finished the group stage without gaining a single point, conceding at least 5 goals in every game with Razimie Ramlli scoring against the Philippines and Nur Ikhwan Othman scoring against Cambodia.[26]
On 17 October 2023, Brunei returned to the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium after four years since their last match against Mongolia in 2019 for their fixture against Indonesia in the first round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification.[27] The Wasps were beaten 0–12 on aggregate, knocking them out of the World Cup in 2026.[28]
Brunei had initially worn dark yellow shirts and shorts as their home kit since their inception in 1956 to represent the colours of their flags.
On July 11, 2021, a decade after it was formed, the Football Association of Brunei Darussalam (FABD) aligned itself with the country’s philosophy as part of its rebranding strategy. In fact, FABD, which was earlier established as the National Football Association of Brunei Darussalam (NFABD), dropped the word National from its name including a new logo which was also unveiled consisting of a three-layered crescent combined to represent the lunar stages culminating into a full moon. The three layers of the crescent each represent the colours of the national flag of Brunei. The ‘ripe-lemon’ coloured crescent contains a Jawi inscription of the association’s name in Malay while the black crescent has the association’s name written in English. The logo also features a green football covered with honeycomb pattern, signifying the association’s wish to inject more precise and better growth in the sport. In fact, the honeycomb motif was chosen as it drew inspiration from the national team’s nickname ‘The Wasps’.
This section is missing information about matches before 1993. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (April 2021)
^"FIFA SUSPEND BAFA". AFF - The Official Website Of The Asean Football Federation. 1 October 2009. Archived from the original on 28 December 2022. Retrieved 28 December 2022.
(21 December 2023)[1]
Malaysia 8–0 Brunei 
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