It has been more than month since the Court of Arbitration for Sports affirmed that the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) used altered, falsified and forged documents for the naturalisation and eligibility process of seven players, despite the players having no connection to Malaysia.
After considering the evidence, the CAS Panel found that the infraction of falsifying eligibility documents was established and that players bore complicit responsibility in this fraud.
The FAM itself accepted the existence of “institutional shortcomings” and did not dispute that it may bear responsibility in violating the FIFA Disciplinary Code.
That is the truth revealed by a thorough FIFA investigation that was verified and agreed upon by the CAS.
Read the full FIFA findings here.
Back home, the FAM and its cohorts have stopped playing football and has taken up tai-chi.
The key word in the decision made by the CAS was “fraud” and it seems that the Malaysian authorities have decided that does not warrant any proper investigation. Neither the Sports Ministry nor the police see the need to get to the bottom of this global scandal.
Perhaps they believe that given enough time people will forget the disgrace the fraudulent act had brought to the country and the Malaysian sporting fraternity.
Several years ago, Indonesian badminton legend Taufik Hidayat, now the Deputy Sports Minister of Indonesia, revealed that a Malaysian official had offered him bribes to throw away his match against Datuk Lee Chong Wei when they were both at the height of their playing careers.
Within a week of the startling revelation, the Malaysian authorities classified the matter as No Further Action (NFA).
In FAM’s case, there is no indication that any investigation has been even initiated to bring the culprits to justice. Or has this matter also been classified as NFA?
Attempted bribery and forging legal documents seems to be non-actionable criminal issues.
Bear in mind, that the huge fine imposed on the FAM and sanctions against the players involved and the national team are all internal association disciplinary actions. It does not absolve any further criminal investigation. This is not a case where a red-carded player is being given a three-match suspension.
Falsifying documents to mislead the National Registration Department is not a clerical error but a blatant criminal act.
The documents submitted in the players citizenship application, which bear each of the Players’ signature and thumbprint, contains the following wording in the section “H”2 (translation presented by the Appellants from Malaysian to English): “I confirm that I have behaved well and that I have been resident in Malaysia for no less than 10 years and all information provided in this form is complete, true and correct in every detail. I fully understand that If I make a knowingly false statement, upon conviction, I can be jailed for two years or fined […] or both.”
Many questions are being raised with the inaction or is it reluctance to bring the culprits to justice?
Was the Ministry of Home Affairs complicit in assisting the FAM in this fraud?
Who is the actual master-mind and is he/she being protected?
Are the authorities worried that any investigation would open up a can of worms implicating powerful personalities?
During the investigation the players did not identify which person from the FAM contacted the players’ respective agents on the opportunity to play for Malaysia. Where they coerced not to reveal the culprits? And if, so by whom?
The Players also asserted that they did not forge or use any falsified documents. They provided original birth certificates of their grandparents to FAM, which were allegedly altered without their knowledge or involvement. This is not a matter of a typo on a word document but blatant alteration of legal documents. Who engineered this and who carried this out with gusto?
FAM acknowledged that certain members of its secretariat, acting under time constraints and in anticipation of official confirmations from Malaysian authorities, made administrative adjustments to foreign birth certificates. These alterations were undertaken without the knowledge or authorization of the Players, the FAM General Secretary, or the FAM Executive Committee. So, who are these members of its secretariat? Are they still in the employ of the FAM?
The FAM had also admitted that the birth certificates submitted in the eligibility enquiries were not authentic. Was this not an admission of guilt?
The FAM Secretary General Noor Azman Rahman had acknowledged that members of the FAM administration “engaged in handling and formatting certain copies of birth certificates… including the altered content”— a direct confession of document tampering. Was he suspended by the FAM because of this damaging confession? Or was it just another well-rehearsed tai-chi move? FIFA certainly found the move to suspend him irrelevant.
On 20 December 2025, FAM stated they will lodge a police report on the alleged falsification of citizenship documents linked to seven “heritage” players under the national team. What is the outcome on this police report? Or did FAM actually lodge the report?
The requirement to lodge a police report was one of the recommendations made by an Independent Investigation Committee (IIC), whose full report was yanked out from the website almost immediately after it was posted.
Is the IIC report available for public scrutiny, now that the matter has been decided by the CAS?
The FIFA Appeals Committee had come to conclusion that the gravity of the misconduct was amplified by the fact that forgery is a criminal offense in virtually all jurisdictions. This broadly reflects a universal legal consensus: the integrity of official documents is sacrosanct, and their falsification is a punishable offense.
Not so. it seems for the Malaysian authorities. Why the silence and the crux of the matter, criminal fraud?
Will the Malaysian sporting fraternity be duped again?
The Sports Ministry must not allow any election of new office bearers of the FAM to be elected without answering these plethora of questions. Who can verify that none of those seeking posts in the FAM were not involved in the forgery?
Or is the Ministry also advocating more tai-chi?
S.T. Arasu is a two-time Malaysian Sportswriter of the Year
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