R Nadeswaran
Published: Oct 12, 2025 2:16 PM
Updated: 5:16 PM
COMMENT | Like a hot potato, responsibility for the fraudulent documentation submitted to the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) is being frantically passed between Malaysian institutions.
Denials and irrelevant questions abound, yet one truth remains undeniable - the grandparents of the seven players in question were never born in Malaysia, contrary to the official claims.
The seven players are Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomás Garcés, Rodrigo Julián Holgado are Imanol Javier Machuca, João Vitor Brandão Figueiredo, Jon Irazábal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano.
Named, shamed, and suspended from playing for a year by Fifa for their role in the supposed deception, their football careers are at a crossroads.
Published: Oct 12, 2025 2:16 PM
Updated: 5:16 PM
COMMENT | Like a hot potato, responsibility for the fraudulent documentation submitted to the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) is being frantically passed between Malaysian institutions.
Denials and irrelevant questions abound, yet one truth remains undeniable - the grandparents of the seven players in question were never born in Malaysia, contrary to the official claims.
The seven players are Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomás Garcés, Rodrigo Julián Holgado are Imanol Javier Machuca, João Vitor Brandão Figueiredo, Jon Irazábal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano.
Named, shamed, and suspended from playing for a year by Fifa for their role in the supposed deception, their football careers are at a crossroads.
At least one of them, Machuca, has reportedly returned to Argentina following his sanction and suspension and to rejoin his club, Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield, and salvage his career, Argentine news outlet Sábado Vélez, which covers the team, reported.
The National Registration Department itself admitted it found no written records of their births, yet it proceeded to issue documents based on unverified secondary sources.
Fifa has now exposed this deception, producing the original birth certificates that directly contradict the supposedly doctored submissions by the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).
This scandal, however, is not an isolated incident but the latest symptom of a long-standing disease. Instant citizenship for foreign footballers is a well-established practice which had gone on unnoticed for years.
Despite the issue being raised by public-interest groups, civil societies and politicians, the government has maintained stoic silence.
The practice
Our checks reveal that this practice began in May 2021, when the national team included three naturalised citizens - Guilherme de Paula (Brazil), Liridon Krasniqi (Kosovo), and Sam Somerville (UK), who played for Malaysia in the World Cup qualifiers in the Middle East.
All had arrived in Malaysia around 2016-2017, failing to meet the constitutionally mandated 10-year residency requirement.
The pattern continued. On the eve of Merdeka in 2022, British national Andrew Lee Tuck proudly proclaimed his new Malaysian citizenship.
He was a journeyman player who supplemented his income by laying tiles in his hometown, Huddersfield, Lee Tuck’s path to citizenship was remarkably swift.
Andrew Lee Tuck
He played for a non-league team, Guiseley, in the Conference North in the evenings.
From England, he went to Thailand for six years, Bangladesh for a year, before landing on our shores, playing for Negeri Sembilan in January 2017.
According to a British news report, he was urged by the Malaysian football authorities to become a citizen “as soon as he was eligible”.
For the record, Tuck has since returned to England and retired from professional football in April last year. He is now involved in the real estate sector and was a finalist in a national UK real estate investor award.
This raises the question: Shouldn't his Malaysian citizenship be revoked, given the illegality of dual citizenship for Malaysians? Ditto for all those who have returned “home” after their playing careers.
Political reaction
The political reaction to the current scandal has been telling. Perikatan Nasional has righteously called for a royal commission of inquiry, with chief whip Takiyuddin Hassan declaring it a “deliberate act of fraud” that “tarnishes Malaysia’s integrity”.
“The Home Ministry and the Youth and Sports Ministry should also check if there are elements of corruption, abuse of power or political interference involved in the matter,” the Kota Bharu MP said in a statement.
The irony is profound. Wasn't Takiyuddin the law minister from 2020-2021 when some of these players were granted citizenship? Was he consulted, or was he bypassed?
He played for a non-league team, Guiseley, in the Conference North in the evenings.
From England, he went to Thailand for six years, Bangladesh for a year, before landing on our shores, playing for Negeri Sembilan in January 2017.
According to a British news report, he was urged by the Malaysian football authorities to become a citizen “as soon as he was eligible”.
For the record, Tuck has since returned to England and retired from professional football in April last year. He is now involved in the real estate sector and was a finalist in a national UK real estate investor award.
This raises the question: Shouldn't his Malaysian citizenship be revoked, given the illegality of dual citizenship for Malaysians? Ditto for all those who have returned “home” after their playing careers.
Political reaction
The political reaction to the current scandal has been telling. Perikatan Nasional has righteously called for a royal commission of inquiry, with chief whip Takiyuddin Hassan declaring it a “deliberate act of fraud” that “tarnishes Malaysia’s integrity”.
“The Home Ministry and the Youth and Sports Ministry should also check if there are elements of corruption, abuse of power or political interference involved in the matter,” the Kota Bharu MP said in a statement.
The irony is profound. Wasn't Takiyuddin the law minister from 2020-2021 when some of these players were granted citizenship? Was he consulted, or was he bypassed?
PN chief whip Takiyuddin Hassan
From 2014 to 2021, 25 players had been naturalised and played for Malaysia, eight of whom had no stints with either Harimau Malaya or junior national teams - it was a direct entry.
Deputy Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was home minister from 2013, succeeding Hishamuddin Hussein. PN chief Muhyiddin Yassin was the minister in the Pakatan Harapan cabinet from 2018 until he led the backdoor government to take over in 2020.
He appointed Hamzah Zainudin, who retained the portfolio in the Ismail Sabri Yaakob government.
I then asked: “So, did the ministry breach its own rules and fast-track their applications? Was it not a dereliction of their duties or was it a case of tutup satu mata (close one eye)?
“They are not superstars or will come anywhere near the likes of Leo Messi, Neymar Jr or even an English Division Three league player. They are journeymen – on a nomadic trail, unable to eke out a living playing football in their own home.”
Our checks show that Somerville was playing for Tooting and Mitchum, a non-league club based on the outskirts of London. Others played in lesser leagues in their country.
Silence to injustice
MPs have long highlighted the injustice in the granting of citizenship to those who do not qualify.
Selangau MP Baru Bian noted that Tuck’s case reinforces the belief that “it is who you know” that matters, while Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto contrasted the fast-tracked naturalisation of footballers with the decades-long waits faced by Malaysians born here.
From 2014 to 2021, 25 players had been naturalised and played for Malaysia, eight of whom had no stints with either Harimau Malaya or junior national teams - it was a direct entry.
Deputy Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was home minister from 2013, succeeding Hishamuddin Hussein. PN chief Muhyiddin Yassin was the minister in the Pakatan Harapan cabinet from 2018 until he led the backdoor government to take over in 2020.
He appointed Hamzah Zainudin, who retained the portfolio in the Ismail Sabri Yaakob government.
I then asked: “So, did the ministry breach its own rules and fast-track their applications? Was it not a dereliction of their duties or was it a case of tutup satu mata (close one eye)?
“They are not superstars or will come anywhere near the likes of Leo Messi, Neymar Jr or even an English Division Three league player. They are journeymen – on a nomadic trail, unable to eke out a living playing football in their own home.”
Our checks show that Somerville was playing for Tooting and Mitchum, a non-league club based on the outskirts of London. Others played in lesser leagues in their country.
Silence to injustice
MPs have long highlighted the injustice in the granting of citizenship to those who do not qualify.
Selangau MP Baru Bian noted that Tuck’s case reinforces the belief that “it is who you know” that matters, while Batu Kawan MP Kasthuri Patto contrasted the fast-tracked naturalisation of footballers with the decades-long waits faced by Malaysians born here.
Former Klang MP Charles Santiago formally questioned the Home Ministry on how Tuck satisfied the 10-year residency requirement, a query that, like so many others, was met with silence.
But among a series of bad news, came an unsolicited disclosure from national coach Peter Cklamovski: “The mess that resulted in the sanctioning of the national body and seven ‘heritage’ footballers is FAM’s doing, not Tunku Ismail Ibrahim.”
He also revealed that the regent of Johor was the one responsible for securing funds from Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
“From what I’m told, there is a lot of negativity towards the regent of Johor, which is unfair and unwarranted. He is a visionary leader, and without him, Malaysian football would have been finished long ago,” said Cklamovski.
Such sentiments aside, the collective evidence on naturalisation points to a damning conclusion - successive governments have been complicit in systematically circumventing the law for selected foreign footballers. They have gotten away with it for years.
Now that Fifa has blown the lid off this festering scandal, the real question is whether the FAM will finally abandon its shortcut culture and invest in developing homegrown talent worthy of the national jersey.
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who tries to live up to the ethos of civil rights leader John Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment