Mahathir Hinted Johor Royalty Behind FAM-FIFA Fraud Scandal

Mahathir Hinted Johor Royalty Behind FAM-FIFA Fraud Scandal


October 14th, 2025 by financetwitter



Despite Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail’s defiance that all foreign players were granted citizenship after a very rigorous process, the scandal involving the fabrication of birth certificates for seven foreign football players so that they can represent Malaysia isn’t going away. Worse, it is turning the heat on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government.




The scandal, which led to world football governing body FIFA slapping the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) with a 350,000 Swiss franc (US$437,000) fine and banning seven foreign-born players who became naturalised citizens and represented the country, has prompted calls from the opposition for a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the embarrassing affair.



It’s not rocket science that FAM was involved in the despicable and shameful forgery. But this is not the first time, and certainly will not be the last, the Malaysian football is plagued by scandals. In the early 1990s, the domestic football was rocked by scandals of match-fixing by illegal gambling bookies. Over 100 players and coaches were investigated for match fixing, leading to bans and punishments.



In the same breath, it is also not hard to see that the home ministry has been colluding with FAM in falsifying birth certificates of the foreign-born footballers. Saifuddin was contradicting himself so much so that cheating is written all over his face. Initially, he insisted the seven “mixed-heritage” football players had fulfilled citizenship criteria under the Federal Constitution.



However, after FIFA revealed evidence that forged documents were used in naturalising the seven foreign-born players as Malaysian citizens, Saifuddin changed his story. This time, he argued that he has the discretionary power to consider certain applicants as meeting the residency requirements, even if they were not physically present in Malaysia for the full prescribed period.



Trying to be smart, he even claims that the seven dubious citizens demonstrate an adequate command of Bahasa Malaysia – “For a foreigner to be considered for Malaysian citizenship through naturalisation, they must make the application personally, demonstrate good behaviour, and have proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia. The application then goes through a process as stipulated under the Citizenship Rules 1964,”




It’s easy to call Saifuddin’s bluff – just get seven Banglas along with the seven footballers to the national television and conduct a live interview in Malay language. Chances are high that the Banglas could speak better Bahasa Malaysia, easily beating the foreign players 7-0 without a need for a penalty shootout to determine the winner. Does that mean the Banglas deserve the citizenship?



The best part is Imanol Javier Machuca, one of Malaysia’s seven “heritage” football players, has reportedly returned to his home country following his sanction and suspension by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). According to Argentine news outlet Sábado Vélez, Machuca is going back to Argentina to rejoin his club, Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield.



So, the burning question for the genius Home Minister Saifuddin is exactly how could the 25-year-old glorified Malaysian player – Imanol Javier Machuca – be allowed dual citizenship, when the law clearly forbids a citizen from holding another nationality? First, these foreigners were given citizenships even though they did not qualify for one. Then, they were given special privilege to hold dual citizenship.




But FAM and the Home Ministry were not the masterminds behind the scandal of using doctored documentation to fast-track citizenships for the foreign-born footballers. And the man who exposed the real mastermind behind the despicable forgery is none other than former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the architect behind “Project IC”.



Malaysia began admitting Rohingya Muslims and Acehnese Muslims in the 1980s. Then in the early 1990s, the notorious “Project IC”, a project which grants citizenship to immigrants by giving them identity cards, was started. It was secretly hatched during Mahathir’s first stint as premier for 22 years (1981-2003) where immigrants – whether legal or otherwise – were systematically granted citizenship in Sabah.



The purpose of Project-IC was to alter the demographic pattern in the state of Sabah to make it more favourable to the then-Mahathir government. A former senator claimed that at least 700,000 immigrants had been given citizenship. In April 2015, Mr. Mahathir admitted that it was his government’s policy to recognise people who were loyal to the country (or rather his government).




It takes a thief to catch another thief. According to Dr Mahathir during Sinar Daily’s Top News Podcast on Thursday (October 9), the FAM-FIFA scandal was caused by “a powerful person” who is “above the law”. While expressing his embarrassment over the scandal, Mahathir said – “So somebody is so powerful that they can actually do wrong things and get away with it. Or at least that’s what the Vietnamese have pointed out,”



Again, it’s not hard to guess who Mahathir was referring to. There’s only one institution and one man involved in the national football ecosystem that is “untouchable” – Johor regent and former FAM president Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, whose father is the current King Sultan Ibrahim of Johor. In Malaysia, 99.99% decisions of the monarch cannot be questioned and challenged.



Mahathir’s hints suggesting that Tunku Ismail, better known as TMJ, was behind the forgery of birth certificates for the seven foreign footballers would explain everything. It was no coincidence that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) – at lightning speed – announced that it has no jurisdiction on the matter almost immediately after the scandal exploded.




On September 27, just two days after FIFA’s stunning decision which humiliated Malaysian football, Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim – who owns Johor Darul Ta’zim, the club that three of the footballers play for – had questioned who had lodged the complaint and why FIFA reversed its earlier decision. “FIFA has already approved (the naturalisation) before, so why has the decision changed now?” – asked Tunku Ismail.



First, it appeared that TMJ was more interested in hunting down the whistleblower rather than finding out the truth about the scandal. Second, the Johor regent appeared upset that FIFA is questioning the status of the naturalisation of the seven foreign players after initially approving it. Third, he appeared shocked that FIFA could find out about the fake documents.



In March and June this year, the FAM submitted documents for seven foreign-born players to FIFA, seeking their eligibility to represent Malaysia’s national team. They are Argentina-born Facundo Tomas Garces, Rodrigo Julian Holgado and Imanol Javier Machuca, Spain-born Gabriel Felipe Arrocha and Jon Irazabal Iraurgui, Dutch-born Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano and Brazil-born Joao Vitor Brandao Figueiredo.




FIFA responded to the FAM that, based on the information provided, the players appeared to comply with pertinent requirements and would be eligible to play for the national team. It was like a “declaration” in your job interview confirming all the particulars submitted were all truth and nothing but the truth, and the company reserves the right to sack you if you falsify any information.



All seven foreign-born players played in an Asian Cup qualifying match on Jun 10 against Vietnam, with two of them scoring in the 4-0 win. Shortly after, what appeared to be a new high point in Malaysian football began to turn dark following a complaint by the Vietnamese authority to FIFA, who in turn officially questioned the eligibility of the seven players to represent Malaysia.



In a statement, FIFA said FAM had submitted forged documents to verify the eligibility of players, allowing them to be fielded in the third round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers against Vietnam on June 10. Therefore, FAM and seven heritage players were sanctioned by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee after being found guilty of violating Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code related to document forgery.




Apparently, FAM had falsely claimed that the grandparents of the seven had been born in places including Melaka, Penang, Johor and Sarawak. Unfortunately to FAM, the FIFA disciplinary committee’s secretariat was able to gather a copy of the “original birth certificate”. As it turned out, the original birth certificates of the grandparents contradicted the (fake) submitted documents.



Having been affiliated with FIFA since 1954, it’s unbelievable that FAM was clueless about the rules to “naturalisation”. Under FIFA rules, a naturalised player must not only hold a valid national passport, but also meet eligibility criteria. These include having a biological parent or a grandparent born in the country, or having lived there continuously for at least five years after the age of 10.



Such rules were designed to prevent the abusive practice of “nationality shopping”, where a football association seeks players who have been overlooked in their home countries by offering them a financial incentive and new citizenship. This is also to prevent countries like Malaysia from buying Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Rodri, and Erling Haaland to unfairly win the FIFA World Cup.




The simple fact that the FAM had submitted fake birth certificates and Home Ministry had endorsed the fake documents with false declarations that the seven naturalised players’ grandparents were born in Malaysia – a requirement not needed for citizenships – is the clearest proof that the forgery was meant to cheat and hoodwink FIFA, and had nothing to do with technical errors or procedural mistakes as childishly claimed by the FAM.



Worse, FIFA’s committee also revealed that Malaysia’s National Registration Department (NRD) “never received the original birth certificates”. The NRD is a department under Malaysia’s Ministry of Home Affairs responsible for determining citizenship status. Instead, the NRD issued its own copies based on dubious secondary information and foreign documents from Argentina, Brazil and Spain.



The NRD further admitted that it could not retrieve the original handwritten records and therefore issued official copies based on evidence that a birth had occurred. This admission indicates that the Malaysian government’s validation process may not have been based on original documents, which calls into question the thoroughness of FAM’s verification process.




The only explanation is that the FAM and the Home Ministry had little choice but to carry out the “dirty job” orders from the Johor Palace obediently like an errand boy. Interestingly, TMJ has been incredibly quiet since FIFA’s revelation. The whistleblower was the Vietnamese authority. The initial FIFA approval was not final. And FIFA somehow managed to find out the original birth certificates. The SCAM has been busted.



Anwar administration’s refusal to debate the FAM forgery scandal in the Parliament only lends credence that the government was involved directly and is trying to cover up now. Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh, whose husband was awarded a multi-billion project, only confirms hanky-panky after she foolishly tried to defend the indefensible Home Minister Saifuddin with extremely dumb excuses.



Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim himself has proven to be an anti-Chinese racist. He only dares to bully ethnic Chinese, as evident when he issued a stern warning against Tourism Minister Tiong King Sing over the serving of alcohol during a dinner held in conjunction with the Global Travel Meet, but kept quiet when Petronas CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz celebrated with a “champagne shower” at the Formula-1 grand prix.




Facing the Johor Monarch, the prime minister has even more reasons to close both eyes over the shameful football scandal as there isn’t any Chinese scapegoat to blame – primarily because he is known to be subservient to Malay Rulers, and partly because the politics in Borneo could see his party wiped out after Sabah dissolved its state assembly ahead of fresh polls that must be held in the next 60 days.



But Anwar is not much different compared to Mahathir. Many Sabahans still view Anwar with distrust because when he served as former PM Mahathir Mohamad’s deputy in government from 1993 to 1998, Anwar was also involved in covert operations to alter the demographics of the state by issuing citizenships to illegal Muslim refugees from the neighbouring islands of southern Philippines and Indonesia.



While the FAM insisted it is innocent and said it will lodge an appeal against the decision by FIFA, which it claimed was “inaccurate and unfounded”, the appeals tribunal typically does not overturn decisions made by FIFA. Should Malaysia remain unsatisfied, the FAM can file an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), an international independent tribunal represented by lawyers and retired judges.



In 2024 alone, however, the CAS upheld 89.5% of FIFA’s decision in cases that came before the tribunal, and the problem is that Malaysia will only then be aware of the full extent of the material and proof that went behind the original decision. Malaysia’s troubles are not expected to end even after any appeals process with the FIFA tribunal and CAS that could stretch to late December.



There could still be serious action against Malaysia from the AFC (Asian Football Confederation), which will only begin its own probes into the matter after the disciplinary process with FIFA is completed. Should an investigation by AFC, which runs the Asian Cup, confirm Malaysia’s guilt, the country could be disqualified from participating in the 2027 Asian Cup. So much for cheating with foreign talent as a quick fix to capture football glory.

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As I mentioned as an advice to Ramkarpal in an earlier posting on the sins of the FAM, the soccer organization has a BIG BIG very very BIG mountain behind it

😂😂😂

And if PMX is looking for a China to blame, why not wallop manja sayang Hannah, wakakaka