The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) announced the suspension of its secretary general on Friday pending an investigation after FIFA said the country had cheated by fielding ineligible players.
Last month, FIFA suspended seven overseas-born players who all featured for Malaysia in a 2027 Asian Cup qualifier and fined FAM US$438,000, citing falsified or doctored documentation involving the players’ grandparents.
Malaysia beat Vietnam 4-0 in the June game.
Photo: AP
FAM vice president Sivasundaram Sithamparam Pillai said that the FAM has formed a committee to investigate the case.
He said that FAM secretary-general Noor Azman Rahman has been suspended so that the committee can carry out its probe independently. No FAM members would be on the committee, he said, but gave no further details.
“FAM maintains that these players were lawfully naturalized in accordance with Malaysian law,” he said. “FAM remains steadfast in our mission to uphold transparency, to protect Malaysian football’s reputation.”
The case has been a setback for Malaysian soccer at a time when former FAM president Hamidin bin Haji Mohd Amin sits on the 37-member FIFA Council.
Former Malaysian king Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah was also a member of FIFA’s ruling committee from 2015 to 2019.
Serge Vittoz, an international sports lawyer representing FAM, said FIFA is set to make its decision on Malaysia’s appeal against the sanctions on Oct. 30.
He said the main contention of the appeal was that FAM and the seven players were not responsible for any forgery.
“There was no forgery on the side of the players. There was no forgery on the side of the FAM as an institution, and if any wrongdoing was done, it should be targeted to the person in question,” he said at a FAM news conference, without elaborating on who should be held responsible.
If unsuccessful, he said FAM would seek a reduction in its liability and might take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In its report last month, FIFA said FAM had submitted forged documents saying the grandparents of the seven players were born in Malaysia — making them eligible to represent the country under FIFA’s nationality rules.
The committee said original certificates showed the said family members had been born in the same countries as the players: Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands and Spain.
The FIFA report said that FAM admitted it “was contacted by external agencies regarding the players’ heritage and yet failed to independently verify the authenticity of the documentation.”
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