FAM, govt's stunning lack of accountability must end

 

The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center) is outraged by the stunning lack of accountability shown by the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and the government - namely, the Home Ministry, the National Registration Department, and the Youth and Sports Ministry.

This is in light of the International Federation of Association Football’s (Fifa) finding that birth and nationality documents were forged and/or falsified for seven players to circumvent Fifa regulations and represent the Malaysian national football team.

Specifically, Fifa’s appeals committee found that there was a deliberate and coordinated attempt to evade Fifa regulations:

• FAM handled all bureaucratic steps to obtain Malaysian nationality on behalf of the seven players.

• All players admitted at the hearing that they did not read any of the relevant documentation, as they did not understand Malay.

• Each player’s grandparent’s birth certificate was manipulated in similar ways, with foreign birthplaces altered to Malaysian locations and other elements and details removed.

• FAM submitted these forged documents to Fifa knowingly and benefited from the fraud through player eligibility approvals. Notably, FAM admitted at the hearing that the birth certificates submitted in the eligibility enquiries were not authentic.

FAM has explained the situation as a mere “administrative error” caused by a member of staff uploading the “wrong documents”.

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail emphasised in Parliament that citizenship applications are strictly evaluated in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and that all seven players satisfied the relevant legal requirements.

Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh previously urged all parties to allow FAM to complete the appeal process before commenting on the issue. Now that the appeals committee has published strong evidence of deliberate and concerted attempts at forgery and manipulation, strong action must be taken.

We ask: who were the individuals responsible for coordinating and abetting these processes, and what has the government done to identify them and take proper action against them?

It is shocking that the government has minimised this situation, given how it is an international scandal that has brought immense disrepute to our nation and made a mockery of our citizenship process.

Take active steps to uphold accountability

The appeals committee delivered a scathing rebuke of FAM, determining that the body had expressly confessed to tampering with documents and knowingly submitting such falsified documents to Fifa for the players’ eligibility checks.

The committee also found the suspension of FAM secretary-general Noor Azman Rahman to be a mere “public relations exercise” rather than a genuine accountability measure, and criticised FAM’s failure to take any discernible disciplinary action or concrete steps to identify the individuals responsible for the forgeries.

For FAM, these criticisms are utterly humiliating and cannot be ignored. The explanation that this was a mere administrative error is untenable, given the fact that similar edits and errors were made for all seven players’ documentation, clearly indicating a concerted effort.

As the committee stated in the decision, “The gravity of this misconduct is amplified by the fact that forgery is a criminal offence in virtually all jurisdictions…the integrity of official documents is sacrosanct, and their falsification is a punishable offence.”

FAM must cooperate with enforcement bodies such as the police or the MACC to identify the persons responsible for coordinating this criminal activity. In particular, the persons identified should not merely be lower-ranking staff who may have performed the acts, but also higher-ranking officials who coordinated or conspired to carry out these acts.

It is unimaginable that fraud of this scale could have been carried out by lower-ranking officers alone. FAM must not simply throw out a few scapegoats while ignoring the ringleaders. With trust in the body at rock bottom, severe action must be taken, regardless of position or status.

Despite this, FAM has already announced plans to escalate the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to “ensure that justice is upheld”. We demand that FAM stop trying to sidestep these findings of wrongdoing and work on fixing the structural flaws that have allowed this scandal to occur instead.

Misleading the public

Saifuddin previously claimed that all players had undergone proper vetting and language tests. The committee’s findings and the players’ own testimony during the hearing expose this as false.

Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail

Multiple players admitted they do not speak Malay and simply signed whatever was placed before them. This contradicts the minister’s assurances and raises the troubling possibility that Malaysian citizenship procedures were circumvented or fabricated entirely.

As home minister, Saifuddin has been adamant about the importance of strict citizenship controls to ensure only the most suitable persons receive Malaysian citizenship. Hence, in light of the evidence revealed through the committee’s hearings, he certainly must explain:

• How did the seven players who cannot speak Bahasa Melayu “pass” a language test?

• On what basis did he exercise his discretion to waive eligibility requirements for the players to receive Malaysian citizenship?

• Who inside his ministry authorised or facilitated these irregular approvals?

• Was there external pressure to fast-track these citizenship applications?

It is important to note that his explanation in Parliament – that he exercised his discretion as Home Minister to reduce or waive certain requirements for the players to obtain citizenship – does not account for the blatant forgeries.

It is worth remembering that this situation makes a mockery of the numerous stateless and undocumented persons in Malaysia who remain in a legal limbo and do not get the same privileges as these players.

Saifuddin must immediately clarify his role in the affair to Parliament and answer for his misleading statements. If he is unable to uphold and protect the country’s citizenship processes, then he is unfit for the job.

Explain future steps

Yeoh previously stated that her ministry had adopted a position of neutrality pending the completion of the appeal process, before any official statement would be released.

She has also acknowledged the importance of strengthening FAM’s governance and restoring public confidence in the integrity and credibility of national football, while also upholding FAM’s independence from any political or governmental interference in accordance with Fifa requirements.

The only reason FAM was exposed for being vulnerable to abuse and misgovernance is that an international sporting body conducted a thorough investigation. Are our other national sporting bodies similarly subject to such practices?

Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh

As the minister in charge of sports, Yeoh should no longer remain neutral on this issue. The ministry should take an active stance on upholding good governance and fair play to reestablish public trust in Malaysian sports.

Our demands

This episode is a national embarrassment, but it must not become a national cover-up. Apologies will not be enough. We applaud the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) for commencing an investigation into this case, looking into issues of integrity, governance and procedural compliance.

The government should also adopt EAIC’s initiative to identify the loopholes and gaps that have allowed for this embarrassment to occur.

In light of FIFA’s findings, C4 Center calls for:

• Public accountability from the home minister, including a detailed explanation of procedural failures that allowed forged documents to be treated as genuine.

• Suspension of all FAM officials involved pending completion of investigations.

• Structural governance reforms of FAM to prevent future abuse of process, including external oversight mechanisms.

• Immediate investigations by the MACC and PDRM into the possible criminal falsification of birth certificates and citizenship records.

• The independent committee led by former chief justice Raus Sharif to investigate the documentation issue must conduct its investigations in a publicly accessible and transparent manner to maintain public faith in the integrity of the proceedings. - Mkini