A shocking incident in Malaysian football is being exposed, as 7 foreign players are accused of using fake documents to wear the national team jersey. According to Malaysian media, the person behind the entire plan is a mysterious "broker" specializing in arranging naturalization for profit.
The FIFA investigation shows that the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has submitted fake birth certificates to players facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Joao figureiredo, Jon Irazabal, Hector Hevel and Gabriel Arrocha.
These documents show that their ancestors were born in Malaysia, while the origin shows that they are all from South America or Europe. The seven players above all played in the 4-0 win over Vietnam in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers on June 10, 2025.
Under public pressure, FAM affirmed that this was just an "ad administrative mistake", due to an employee "accidentally downloading documents" from the representative. However, this explanation was quickly dismissed when the National Registration Commission of Malaysia (NRD) admitted that it could not trace the original records, raising doubts about the transparency of the entire process.
Malaysian media also said that there is a network of intermediaries that benefits from this naturalization program. With the brokerage commission usually accounting for 10% of the transfer value, the "running" amount for 7 players is certainly not small.
Experts say that this incident not only exposed loopholes in FAM's management system but also raised questions about the responsibility to use the 30 million ringgit (more than 7 million USD) budget allocated by the Malaysian government for football development.
Malaysia has filed an appeal against the penalty against FIFA. However, in the eyes of fans, the team is facing a deep crisis of confidence.
