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On June 11, FIFA received a formal complaint questioning the authenticity of the documents and how quickly the players had been approved for national duty. That prompted an investigation by the FIFA disciplinary committee secretariat.
Investigators obtained the original birth records from authorities in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands. The originals showed that the grandparents were born abroad, not in Penang, Johor, Melaka or Sarawak as the submitted certificates claimed.
On that basis, FIFA concluded that the certificates had been intentionally altered to manufacture Malaysian ancestry and that their use amounted to forgery under Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code.
FAM and the seven players β Facundo Garces, Imanol Machuca, Hector Hevel, Gabriel Palmero, Rodrigo Holgado, Joao Figueiredo and Jon Irazabal β said they had acted in good faith.
They argued that the National Registration Department (NRD) had verified the lineage and approved naturalisation, that they had relied on NRD checks, and that any irregularity was an administrative mistake when an employee uploaded documents from a player agent instead of official NRD copies.
FAM further maintained the matter was a technicality with no sporting advantage because the players were lawful Malaysian citizens who had not represented other countries. The association asked for leniency, citing cooperation and a clean disciplinary record, and pointed to FIFA letters which had said the players "appeared to be eligible."
However, FIFA rejected those arguments and applied strict liability under Article 22 β meaning the use of forged documents is punishable regardless of intent β and found that FAM had failed to exercise reasonable scrutiny.
FIFA highlighted that the NRD, in a statement included in FAM's own file, admitted it had not received the original handwritten records. The department had instead issued copies based on secondary foreign information β a fact that undermined FAM's claim of proper verification.
The committee also noted that its investigators obtained the original records "without hindrance," while FAM did not demonstrate equivalent verification efforts.
FIFA ruled that the forgery was not a mere formality. It stressed that the falsified documents were a decisive factor in establishing eligibility and had direct sporting consequences, pointing to the June match where five of the players started and two scored.
The conduct was described as a "deliberate and successful attempt to circumvent the rules for personal and sporting gain."
FIFA fined FAM 350,000 Swiss francs (RM1.9 million), while each player was fined 2,000 Swiss francs and suspended for 12 months. It said the sanctions were necessary to protect the integrity of the sport and deter similar conduct.
FAM has three days from the date of notification to lodge an appeal with the FIFA Appeal Committee, with a further five days to file the full brief.
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