Ola Bola

• JC Chee as Chow Kwok Keong/Tauke(Soh Chin Aun motive)
• Muhd Luqman Hafidz bin Mohd Fauzi as Ahmad Ali (Hassan Sani motive)
• Sarankumar a/l Manokaran as Muthu Kumar (The late R. Arumugam motive)
• Bront Palarae as Rahman (Rahim Razali motive)
• Marianne Tan Poh Yee as Marianne

• Lim Jian Wen as Yap Tiam Cai
• Eric Teng Shin Wang as Eric Yong (James Wong motive)
• Daphne Low Sin Mun as Chow Mei Ling（
• Mark Williams as Harry Mountain (The late Karl-Heinz Weigang motive)
• Mohamad Taufiq Hanafi as Mohamad Abu (Shukor Salleh motive)
• Katrina Ho Fooi Tin as Tan Siew Lee）
• Ganasen a/l Thanimalai as Ali's colleague

• Soh Chin Aun as Chow Kok Keong (modern-day)（
• Lee Chwee Sieang as Tan Siew Lee (modern-day)
• Rahim Razali as Rahman's sports commentator superior
• Markus Wehner Glæsel
• Janus Emil Mariager

• Frankie Lee Sai Peng as security guard

The original soundtrack for the movie, Arena Cahaya is written and performed by Zee Avi.[3] The song is co-produced by Zee and Rendra Zawawi.[3] The song is the winner of the "Best Original Theme Song" category in the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in 2016[4] This song also won the "Best Original Theme Song" award at the 28th Malaysia Film Festival held on 3 September 2016.[5]

The film opened to 120 theatres across Malaysia and earned approximately RM2.5 million for the first 4 days of its release.[6] The figure had accumulated to around RM8 million thirteen days later.[7]

Thomas Schmid, who wrote for Film Journal International, had reported that the film had supposedly failed to reach Malaysia's top 20 box-office, performing "relatively slowly" compared with other recent foreign blockbusters despite banking on director Keng's success with his previous work The Journey.[8] However, local entertainment portal The Daily Seni refuted this claim, providing their own figures for the film with approximately RM15.3 million as of early March 2016. The portal further explained that the film's supposed flop was due to weekly Malaysian box office reports being never disclosed to the public.[9]

Some members of the public, including two key players in the Malaysian team that qualified for that Olympics, voiced concerns over the potential confusion that may arise from the distortion of certain facts depicted in the movie. That includes the actual scoreline and the player scoring the winning goal in the qualifier against South Korea.[17]

The production team has since clarified that the plot is "inspired by a true story"[18] as mentioned in the opening scene of the movie, and is not meant to be a historical account.

Ola Bola became a subject of public outrage when it became one of the high-profile films to be disqualified from the Best Film shortlist in the 28th Malaysia Film Festival and lumped in the controversial Non-Bahasa Malaysia categories by the award organisers National Film Development Corporation (FINAS) and Film Producers Association Malaysia (PFM), because it contained less than 70% Bahasa Malaysia dialogue.[19][20][21]

The action was deemed to be a "racist" move, as claimed by the president of the Selangor and Kuala Lumpur Screenwriters Association (PENULIS), Alfie Palermo.[22] Filmmaker Afdlin Shauki announced on his Facebook page of his boycott to express his dissatisfaction,[23] which was supported by CIMB Group chairman Nazir Razak and Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes.[24] One participating cinematographer, Mohd Noor Kassim, also followed suit; withdrawing his nominations in the occasion[25] and returned two FFM trophies he won in previous editions to FINAS director Kamil Othman during a forum held by the agency in Kuala Lumpur. There had also been calls from both within and out of the film industry to boycott the award ceremony.[26][27][28] The assistant-general secretary of the Film Directors’ Association of Malaysia (FDAM) Hafiz Ibrahim resigned in protest of the unfair segregation.

FINAS has since revamped the category system under instructions from Multimedia and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak on 10 August. All non-Bahasa Malaysia categories were removed and nominees were eligible to compete for Best Film, Director and Screenplay in the original category, where a new category - Best Film in the National Language - is established in their place, where nominees that meet a 70% Bahasa Malaysia requirement can compete in this particular category.[21]