The Malaysian Football Association intends to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision of the International Federation (FIFA) to suspend seven players from the national team, despite an official investigation into the forgery of documents concerning their place of birth and eligibility.
FIFA decided in September to suspend seven international players born outside Malaysia for a year and imposed a fine of 440,000 dollars on the Malaysian Football Association. FIFA's disciplinary committee published a 19-page report detailing the results of the investigation, stating that the documents submitted by the Malaysian Football Association showed they were forged or altered "whereby they were manipulated to change the place of birth listed therein".
The Malaysian Football Association insisted it acted in good faith, claiming the error was "technical", before announcing on Tuesday its intention to appeal the decision of the highest football authority to CAS, as stated by its acting president Youssef Mahdi, who said "The Malaysian Football Association will begin procedures to refer this case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport".
He added in a statement: "This step is taken to ensure justice and defend the integrity of the player eligibility process established by the Malaysian government and the relevant authorities".
The Malaysian Football Association's announcement also came after the FIFA Appeals Committee issued a damning report on Monday explaining its decision to reject the Malaysian Football Association's appeal against the suspensions and fine.
FIFA announced the ban on September 27 following a complaint regarding the seven players who all participated in Malaysia's 4-0 victory over Vietnam in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers in June, with two of them managing to score.
FIFA rules allow football players born abroad to represent national teams if their parents or grandparents were born there.
However, FIFA's disciplinary committee stated that it had obtained original birth certificates showing that the grandparents were born in Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Spain, considering that "submitting forged documents with the aim of obtaining eligibility to play for a national team is, quite simply, a form of cheating that cannot be tolerated".
The Malaysian Football Association denied any deliberate violations and appealed the decision in October, before suspending its secretary-general, confirming it would form an independent committee to investigate.
However, on Monday, the FIFA Appeals Committee accused it of "having taken no concrete disciplinary action, no actual suspensions, no dismissals, or referral to local authorities", adding that "this omission indicates a lack of accountability and raises serious concerns about the governance culture within the organization".
The committee continued: "Accordingly, the FIFA Appeals Committee has instructed its General Secretariat to take immediate steps to initiate a formal investigation into the internal operations of the Malaysian Football Association".
