The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM admitted a staff error in player documents for an Asian Cup qualifier but confirmed all 7 mixed-heritage Harimau Malaya players are legitimate citizens. It is awaiting FIFA’s judgment before appealing.
Last Friday (September 26), FAM and seven players were hit with sanctions by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee for breaking Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) over falsified documents.
According to BERNAMA, FIFA said FAM had submitted fake documents to prove the players’ eligibility, which allowed them to play in the third round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers against Vietnam on 10 June.
All seven players are banned from football activities for 12 months
The seven players involved are Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facuno Graces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanon Machuca, Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal, and Hector Hevel.
Because of this, FAM was slapped with a CHF350,000 fine (~RM1.8 million), while each player was fined CHF2,000 (~RM10,560) and banned from all football activities for 12 months, starting from the date of the decision.
FAM later admitted there was a technical slip-up in how the documents for the seven heritage players were submitted, saying it was due to an error by their administrative staff.
FAM has filed an appeal against FIFA’s decision
In a statement, FAM Secretary-General Datuk Noor Azman Rahman said the association has already filed an appeal against FIFA’s decision and is now waiting for the full judgment before moving forward with the proper legal process.
“We’ve identified a technical error in the document submission process by our admin staff, and we take this matter very seriously. That said, we want to stress that the heritage players involved are indeed legitimate Malaysian citizens,” he said.
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