When you hear the names Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomás Garcés, Rodrigo Julián Holgado, Imanol Javier Machuca, João Vitor Brandão Figueiredo, Jon Irazábal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano, do they sound Malaysian to you?
Now call me racist, but I don’t think any of these names sound Malaysian at all. The people I went to school with don't have this name. These are not names of the people I met in my workplace. In my neighbourhood or even at the mall or the post office, it is not with people that have this sort of names that I interact with.
But surprisingly, the owners of these names are not only Malaysians, they are also representing the country at the highest level in sport, by being a part of Harimau Malaya – the national football team.
Now, the fact that these “naturalised” players are a part of our national football team might not be news to football fans, but being a non-football fan, I am incredibly surprised that so many of these “newly naturalised” players are a part of our squad.
The worst part? It might even be questionable how Malaysian these players really are, because FIFA – the world football governing body – actually begs to differ as to the eligibility of some of them to represent our country.
According to FIFA, several of these players were likely “not yet Malaysians” when they represented the country in key international matches. As a result, FIFA has decided to “shame” our country by slapping the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and seven players with heavy sanctions. Not only is there a possibility that Malaysia’s 4-0 victory over Vietnam in the Asian Cup 2027 qualifier will be revoked, but the scandal has also embarrassed the nation on the global stage.
FIFA’s disciplinary committee announced that FAM had submitted doctored documents to field 7 players in the Vietnam match on June 10. 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 – have all been suspended from all football-related activities for 12 months effective immediately.
FAM, meanwhile, has been fined 350,000 Swiss francs (about RM1.9 million), while each player was fined 2,000 Swiss francs (about RM11,000). FIFA cited a breach of Article 22 of its disciplinary code, which relates to forgery and falsification.
The matter of whether these players were even eligible to represent Malaysia has now been referred to the FIFA Football Tribunal for further consideration. The sanctions, however, are open to appeal.
This scandal, as can be expected, has rocked Malaysian football. Sports analyst Pekan Ramli compared the fiasco to the 1994 match-fixing scandal, calling it “a major calamity.”
“I consider this a major calamity, just like the 1994 corruption scandal. The difference is that back then, it was only an internal crisis, but this time, it has escalated to involve FIFA. Our international image is badly damaged,” he said.
National football legend Jamal Nasir Ismail echoed these concerns, saying the controversy has raised serious questions about FAM’s integrity. “If FAM is suspended, the league cannot go on. Youth development will stop, grassroots programmes freeze, and sponsors pull out. This will destroy our football ecosystem,” he warned.
For the record, nine of Malaysia’s starting eleven against Vietnam were naturalised players, with five of them – Figueiredo, Holgado, Irazabal, Garces and Machuca – receiving FIFA clearance just hours before kick-off.
Now putting aside the legalities and the technicalities, I must confess: I still find it hard to believe that nine of the eleven players in our national football squad were not born and bred in Malaysia.
Even if this is allowed, even if it’s legal, I’m not sure whether I am ok with this.
I am not sure whether I am ok with this, because I don’t think that it is sufficient that our national football squad wins in a tournament – we must also feel that we, as Malaysians, have won. To feel that it is us that have won, I need the people who represent the country to look and sound like the people I have met in the schools, streets and workplaces that I have been to. How the heck am I supposed to feel like I won, or our country won, when our football team won, when 9 out of 11 of the football players in the team look and sound like they come from Madrid or Bogota rather than Kuching or Kangar?
Now some might argue: “C’mon Nehru, you are being unreasonable. This is 2025 not 1995. Today, not everybody representing Negeri Sembilan or Johor in local circuits are born in Negeri or Johor. How many of Liverpool or Manchester United’s players were born in those cities? If you didn’t see any problem in having Liverpool’s or JDT’s players not be locals, why is it an issue to you now?”
To that I’d say: “Yes, technically and legally, you have a point. But not all truths are understood through analysis; some can only be appreciated by experience.
Analytically, you might be right – a win by Malaysia’s team, regardless of where the players were born, is still a win for Malaysia. But by experience, I’m not sure that I – or many others – will ever feel like we truly won, when the people delivering those victories are strangers to our soil.
Like everybody else, I also want to win, but to be brutally honest, if given a choice between having a win that you cannot experience and having a loss that you can experience, I would rather lose, even if the experience that it begets is crushing.
Between feeling disappointed and feeling nothing, I think it is still better to feel disappointed, because even in disappointment you can still feel alive. But what can be more depressing and meaningless than lifting a cup at the top of the world while feeling nothing, because you can’t help but suspect that it is not you, but someone else that has won?
To the government, after you sort out this mess with FAM, I would like to make a request. Can you please create a national football team that is made of people that look and sound like they came from Kuala Terengganu or Kota Kinabalu, instead of some town in Spain or Colombia? If push comes to shove, I would rather lose with a national team that has players with names like Shahrul Affendy or Tan Chun Sin or Suresh Kumar or Robyn Edward Anye, than win with one that is made up of players who sound like they came from a place I want to vacation at, not grew up in.
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