KUALA LUMPUR: On Dec 26, Datuk Seri Najib Razak was found guilty of four charges of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) case.
He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment and fined RM11.4 billion. The decision came a decade after the 1MDB saga hit headlines, which initially prompted a wave of denials instead of transparency and accountability.
As 2025 comes to an end, the uncanny resemblance of the 1MDB saga is seen in the ongoing drama involving Fifa and the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), following the submission of doctored documentation involving seven footballers just before the 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Vietnam in June.
On Sept 26, Fifa announced that FAM was slapped with a CHF350,000 fine and that the seven players – Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomás Garcés, Rodrigo Julián Holgado, Imanol Javier Machuca, João Vitor Brandão Figueiredo, Jon Irazábal Iraurgui, and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano – were banned from all football activities for 12 months and fined CHF2,000 each. FAM is now appealing the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Yet to date, Malaysians remain clueless as to:
• who recommended the players,
• who doctored the documents, and
• who gave the seven players the thumbs up to play for Harimau Malaya?
On Nov 19, this writer wrote that after the 1MDB debacle, FAM’s forged-documents scandal has left football authorities tongue-tied, fans duped and the nation shamed. The similarities, with the exception of the billions of ringgit lost, are uncanny.
In true 1MDB fashion, reflexive denial was the first line of defence. Certain parties insisted early on that there were no criminal wrongdoings. Fifa was instead accused of being biased, and that the international body had erred in its decision, as the seven footballers were granted Malaysian citizenship at record speed.
Former Youth and Sports minister Hannah Yeoh, on Instagram stories, said she was “saddened and angry” after reading about Fifa’s decision, adding: “Let’s not jump the gun.”
But Yeoh was quick to share her views about the 1MDB fiasco during its early days.
One of Yeoh’s predecessors, Khairy Jamaluddin, also on Instagram stories (image below), took issue with Fifa, questioning why the footballers were earlier allowed to play against Vietnam, a match Malaysia won 4-0. He also asked: “Who lodged the complaint?”
Similar tunes were sung when the 1MDB saga started grabbing headlines in 2015. There was an element of delegitimising critics by those in power, instead of addressing the elephant in the room.
Then Cabinet ministers, party supporters and online mercenaries discredited those who wrote and spoke against 1MDB. Online trolls went into overdrive, creating an ‘us versus them’ divide. The assumption was for fans and the general public to simply follow and not ask questions.
The ‘us versus them’ narrative, mostly online, is unfortunately also seen in the Fifa-FAM incident. Ironically, football is supposed to unite.
This also begs another question – who is funding these online “mercenaries”?
Putrajaya scrambled to address the situation in 2015, but failed miserably. The result was Barisan Nasional being booted out of Putrajaya at the 2018 General Election. The main reason was 1MDB, as admitted by Khairy, who was then part of Najib’s Cabinet as Youth and Sports minister.
Fast forward to the present day, it seems that FAM too is having a tough time tackling the doctored-documentation fiasco. It appears ‘coachless’. The series of back-passes by its officials is creating own goals. Sponsors are wondering what's next.
It is clear that both the 1MDB and football scandals, although a decade apart, illustrate a recurring governance issue in Malaysia. When institutions prioritise reputation and power preservation over truth, denial becomes instinctive, accountability becomes external, and reform becomes accidental rather than intentional. The ‘trust the process/system’ and ‘we know what we are doing’ syndromes are being normalised, without justification or transparency.
It is well known that occupying a seat in Wisma FAM is more than just a responsibility. It is about perceived power, rubbing shoulders with the who’s who in society, a jet-setting lifestyle, being hosted by diplomats abroad, and the ability to walk into the Prime Minister’s Office and even palaces.
This is also a sport that seems to enjoy government funding. In Budget 2025, RM15 million of tax payers' money and another RM15 million from private companies were allocated to FAM. It remains unclear how much has been spent, and on what.
The government also agreed to allocate RM5 million to FAM after the national team managed a 3-3 draw against South Korea in an Asian Cup group match on Jan 25, 2024. This despite the national team ending its Asian Cup campaign prematurely after losing 4-0 to Jordan and 1-0 to Bahrain in the previous group matches.
However, the report by the Independent Investigation Committee (IIC), chaired by former Chief Justice Tun Raus Sharif, which was submitted to FAM recently provided a dose of reality.
It highlighted serious failures in oversight, due diligence and administrative control within FAM, which allowed the incident to occur undetected.
The committee also recommended that FAM’s Disciplinary Committee investigate its suspended secretary-general Datuk Noor Azman Rahman to determine whether he failed to exercise the expected level of oversight. This is the same individual who, although suspended, attended a football-related event held on the sidelines of the 47th Asean Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in October.
FAM must get real. At the end of the day, the buck stops at Wisma FAM.
If none of the officials are willing to step up – by securing sufficient funds, ensuring paperwork is done properly, and developing the sport at the grassroots – then they should leave with whatever little dignity intact and never return to football.
If the current set of officials want to hang on slightly longer, then they must first be transparent about the doctored-documentation fiasco. Name names. Fans and Malaysians deserve to know.
They must also revisit FAM’s F:30 blueprint, which has clearly derailed. Experienced officials must ensure state football associations work closely with grassroots academies, state education departments and state youth and sports departments to strengthen the talent pool. In sport, a whole-of-society approach is key.
Speaking to reporters after the guilty verdict by the Kuala Lumpur High Court, Najib’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said: “If this were football, they scored 100 goals and we scored zero. It’s a perfect result for the prosecution.” FAM is also staring at a similar scoreline.
Officials from the national body must quickly learn from the 1MDB episode. Drastic measures are needed to win back the trust of stakeholders and regain full control of Wisma FAM.
The fiasco at the top will naturally trickle down to the grassroots. Young girls and boys who play the sport must not be victimised. Their hopes and dreams must not be shattered by officials parading in business suits.
Football cannot, and must not, be treated as a playground. No one is bigger than the sport.
