FIFA does not answer to the corrupt system of Malaysia.
When seven out of 11 football (soccer) players in your national team do not resemble local ethnics – Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan or Iban – it already smells fishy. And it screams “cheating” when they were actually imported foreign-born players passed on as Malaysian footballers. It becomes a scandal – even a national embarrassment – when their birth certificates are doctored or forged.
At best, the shameful cheating by the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) shows that the national football has plunged into a deplorable state, so much so the country could no longer produce local talents – due to racism and discrimination policy – in the sports which Malaysia once dominated and feared in Asia in the 1980s, and has to desperately depend on foreign players to make ends meet.
At worst, the blatant forgery or falsification of birth certificates of the foreign-born footballers shows the extent of hanky-panky the FAM and government authorities were willing to go just to create a false impression about domestic football standards. Malaysian football during the era of legendary players Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Aun, Santokh Singh, and Arumugam once instilled fear in opponents like South Korea.
In March and June this year, the FAM submitted documents for seven foreign-born players to FIFA, seeking their eligibility to represent Malaysia’s national team. They are Argentina-born Facundo Tomas Garces, Rodrigo Julian Holgado and Imanol Javier Machuca, Spain-born Gabriel Felipe Arrocha and Jon Irazabal Iraurgui, Dutch-born Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano and Brazil-born Joao Vitor Brandao Figueiredo.
FIFA responded to the FAM that, based on the information provided, the players appeared to comply with pertinent requirements and would be eligible to play for the national team. They played in Malaysia’s 4-0 victory over Vietnam in the Asian Cup third-round qualifier on June 10, with Holgado and Figueiredo each scoring a goal. It was Malaysia’s first win against Vietnam in a decade.
Malaysia’s celebration was cut short when the next day, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) received a complaint regarding the eligibility of five of the players. After investigation, FIFA slapped a fine last month of 350,000 Swiss francs (RM1.85 million or US$438,960) on FAM, and a fine of 2,000 Swiss francs and suspension from all football-related activities for a year on the players.
However, on September 27, just two days after FIFA’s stunning decision, which humiliated Malaysian football, Johor regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim – who owns Johor Darul Ta’zim, the club that three of the footballers play for – had questioned who had lodged the complaint and why FIFA reversed its earlier decision. “FIFA has already approved (the naturalisation) before, so why has the decision changed now?” – asked Tunku Ismail.
To cover up, FAM initially claimed that the penalties were due to procedural issues rather than serious wrongdoing. In response, football authority FIFA has finally shared evidence of how the Football Association of Malaysia submitted fake documents. Even after being caught with its pants down, FAM still insists it was an “administrative error” and, as predicted, has blamed the mistake on its staff.
In a statement, FIFA said FAM had submitted forged documents to verify the eligibility of players, allowing them to be fielded in the third round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers against Vietnam on June 10. Therefore, FAM and seven heritage players were sanctioned by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee after being found guilty of violating Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code related to document forgery.
Apparently, FAM had falsely claimed that the grandparents of the seven had been born in places including Melaka, Penang, Johor and Sarawak. Unfortunately for FAM, the FIFA disciplinary committee’s secretariat was able to gather a copy of the “original birth certificate”. As it turned out, the original birth certificates of the grandparents contradicted the (fake) submitted documents.
For example, Garces’ grandfather – Carlos Rogelio Fernandez – was said to have been born in Penang, but FIFA said his original birthplace was actually Villa María Selva in Santa Fe de la Cruz, Argentina. Likewise, Serrano’s grandfather Hendrik Jan Hevel was allegedly born in Melaka, but was found to have been born in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Even if Johor regent Tunku Ismail was ignorant of the rules, FAM should know better than to cheat using such a childish method. Under FIFA rules, a naturalised player must not only hold a valid national passport but also meet eligibility criteria. These include having a biological parent or a grandparent born in the country or having lived there continuously for at least five years after the age of 10.
Such rules were designed to prevent the abusive practice of “nationality shopping”, where a football association seeks players who have been overlooked in their home countries by offering them a financial incentive and new citizenship. Given a chance, Malaysia would brag about winning the FIFA World Cup if it could buy and naturalise Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Rodri, Erling Haaland, etc.
Worse, FIFA’s committee also revealed that Malaysia’s National Registration Department (NRD) “never received the original birth certificates”. The NRD is a department under Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs responsible for determining citizenship status. Instead, the NRD issued its own copies based on secondary information and foreign documents from Argentina, Brazil and Spain.
The best part is on September 27, the same day Johor regent Tunku Ismail questioned FIFA’s decision to penalise FAM, the clueless and incompetent Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution declared that the naturalisation process for the players in the country’s “Harimau Malaya” squad was done in full compliance with the law. Did Saifuddin even realise that the documents were fake all along?
The NRD further admitted that it could not retrieve the original handwritten records and therefore issued official copies based on evidence that a birth had occurred. This admission indicates that the Malaysian government’s validation process may not have been based on original documents, which calls into question the thoroughness of FAM’s verification process.
If the home minister knew from the beginning the seven backdoor Malaysian footballers were naturalised using forged birth certificates or dubious documents, it shows the ministry had been working hand-in-glove with FAM in the cheating scandal – and even tried to cover up after it was exposed. If Saifuddin Nasution had no idea about the forgery, then it’s even worse because it shows he has been sleeping on the job.
Known for rampant corruption, the suspicious validation process at the NRD also suggests that citizenships could be manufactured and sold to any foreigners as long as money changes hands. Hilariously, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and players have said they were not aware of the circumstance that some of the documents submitted might have been falsified.
It’s hard to believe that there was absolutely nobody in Malaysia – either the players or the government – who knew about the forgery, yet a foreign organisation like FIFA could easily investigate and discover the explosive scandal. Hiding behind the Official Secrets Act 1972 would not stop the international football community from laughing at Malaysia’s desperation to cheat just to win football matches.
After decades of being a pariah in the sports it once excelled, FAM had, in 2018, hatched an idea to recruit naturalised or “heritage players” to improve the national team’s performance, in a bid to follow Indonesia’s success with its Dutch diaspora. In March that year, Malaysia ranked 178th in the world out of 221 countries – its lowest position since 1992. Thanks to backdoor players, they have rebounded to 123rd as of September.
Since 2018, the national team has included several naturalised players who are popular with the fans. Among them are Belgium-raised captain Dion Cools, UK-born La’Vere Corbin-Ong and Stuart Wilkin, Australia-born Matthew Davies, US-born Wan Kuzain and Finland-born Nooa Laine. All of them have at least one Malaysian parent.
Armed with support from the government and royal house, the arrogant FAM must have thought that nobody would investigate, let alone discover its cheating business. They forgot FIFA is an international organisation – the global governing body for association football, founded in Paris in 1904. Playing the “technical error” card would not work because, unlike Malaysia, it’s difficult to bribe the FIFA Council and Congress.
More importantly, Malaysia and FIFA have different standards of compliance. While Malaysia would gladly close both eyes in falsifying not one, not two, not three, but seven birth certificates, FIFA cannot tolerate the level of nonsense, dishonesty, corruption and whatnot in this country. In its written grounds, FIFA said the FAM’s and players’ alleged conduct “constitutes, pure and simple, a form of cheating, which cannot in any way be condoned”.
FAM’s only solution is to appeal in writing. But it’s hard to see how FIFA would accept Malaysia’s ridiculous excuse. We’re not talking about one or two players, but a whopping seven players. It was a deliberate and systematic forgery which will certainly damage FIFA’s own reputation if allowed. Just because Malaysia could bulldoze citizenship to the players does not mean it can violate FIFA’s “grandfather rule”.
Yes, just because you can afford a plastic surgery to look like Tom Cruise does not mean Hollywood would automatically sign you up for the next Mission Impossible film. While FAM could bend the rules within Malaysia to artificially create football stars, it’s a different ball game on the international stage. FIFA does not answer to the corrupt system of Malaysia.
Even if FAM does not understand the meaning of shameful, it should realise that rebranding the national team as “Harimau Malaya” with a new logo slapped, as well as pretending that the seven foreign players who spoke very little Malay language are genuine Malaysian footballers just because they were fast-tracked as citizens, does not actually bring any honour to Malaysia. On the contrary, the world has no respect for you and even despises you.
With children whose Malaysian mother gave birth to them whilst overseas are being denied citizenship, not to mention how the dirt poor indigenous population Orang Asli was told their children are stateless just because they had no money to register the birth of their children, it screams hypocrisy, double standards and discrimination that the Anwar Madani government becomes the partner-in-crime in the FAM citizen scandal. – Finance Twitter