New FAM leadership apologises over players’ citizenship scandal

FAM president Ab Ghani Hassan said the apology was made on behalf of the national football governing body, including its new executive committee which has taken over FAM’s leadership, reported Berita Harian.

He said the new FAM leadership took a serious view of the matter, and stressed that the national football body must tighten its procedures for handling player documentation and national team call-ups to ensure all requirements are properly followed.

“Representing all the FAM executive committee members currently in office, I would like to apologise to all Malaysian football fans over the issue involving forged documents for seven heritage players,” he told reporters here today.

“I am committed to ensuring that such issues will not happen again throughout my tenure leading FAM,” he told a press conference after chairing the sixth FAM executive committee meeting for the 2025-2029 term at Wisma FAM.

Ghani was elected FAM president for the remainder of the 2025-2029 term on Sept 17. The election was held seven months after FAM’s entire leadership stepped down following an AFC governance review.

Last year, FAM and seven naturalised Malaysian footballers were penalised by Fifa after the world football body said they had submitted falsified birth certificates to confirm the players’ eligibility before Malaysia’s 2027 Asian Cup qualifier against Vietnam last June.

A Fifa investigation found that falsified documents had been used to claim that each player had a grandparent born in Malaysia, although they were actually born in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands.

The players are Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomas Garces, Rodrigo Julian Holgado, Imanol Javier Machuca, Joao Vitor Brandao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano.

In addition to slapping FAM with a fine of 350,000 Swiss francs (about RM1.8 million), Fifa fined each player 2,000 Swiss francs (about RM10,560) and suspended them for 12 months.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport partially upheld the appeal filed by the seven players, ruling that the ban be applied only for official matches instead of all football-related activities.

The CAS found that the 12-month ban for falsifying documents was a reasonable and proportionate sanction for the players, given their complicit responsibility in the fraud.

It also dismissed FAM’s appeal over the fines, considering them justified and proportionate to the offence.

In July, the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission recommended a review of the citizenship approvals granted to the seven players after a task force uncovered several irregularities in the process.

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