{"id":8944,"date":"2026-02-04T21:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=8944"},"modified":"2026-02-04T21:57:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:57:05","slug":"february-26-d-day-for-fam-and-naturalised-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/february-26-d-day-for-fam-and-naturalised-players\/","title":{"rendered":"February 26 D-day for FAM and naturalised players"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Football Association of Malaysian (FAM) and seven naturalised players will know their fate at the Court of Arbitration for Sport on 26<sup>th<\/sup> February this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>CASA has fixed the date to hear the appeals from the FAM and the players who are embroiled in a controversy that had rocked Malaysia in recent months. The entire FAM executive council had also tendered their resignation recently in the wake of the scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FIFA had implicated the FAM in the scandal involving forged documents used to naturalize seven foreign-born players for the national team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following findings of falsified documentation for a 2025 Asian Cup qualifier, FIFA fined FAM 350,000 Swiss francs and imposed 12-month bans on the players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The seven players sanctioned were Facundo Garc\u00e9s, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Jo\u00e3o Figueiredo, Gabriel Palmero, Jon Irazabal, and H\u00e9ctor Hevel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The players were initially barred from playing for 12 months but were given a reprieve earlier this month until the case if disposed of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FIFA accused FAM of &#8220;doctoring&#8221; birth certificates to make it appear as though foreign-born players had grandparents from Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FAM has stated that the discrepancies arose from an &#8220;administrative error,&#8221; insisting the players are &#8220;legitimate Malaysian citizens&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Football Association of Malaysian (FAM) and seven naturalised players will know their fate at the Court of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[337,63],"class_list":["post-8944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-cas","tag-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed.jpg",1600,1000,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-300x188.jpg",300,188,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-768x480.jpg",640,400,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-1024x640.jpg",640,400,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-1536x960.jpg",1536,960,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed.jpg",1600,1000,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/newsbeat\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fam_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8945,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions\/8945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}