Malaysia football officials quit over foreign-born players scandal

KUALA LUMPUR — The entire executive committee of Malaysia’s football association resigned on Wednesday, the latest blow in a damaging eligibility row over forged documents used to field foreign-born players in Asian Cup qualifiers.FIFA suspended seven foreign-born players for a year in September and fined the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) $400,000 for submitting false documents claiming they had Malaysian ancestry.Fifa, the world football governing body, has accused FAM of doctoring citizenship documents so seven foreign-born athletes could play for Malaysia.The mass resignations would “ensure that any necessary reforms may be undertaken without distraction or perceived conflicts, and with a renewed basis of trust”, FAM said in a statement on Wednesday.It added that until a new committee is appointed, FAM’s operations will be managed by a small team led by its secretary-general with help from the Asian Football Confederation.For days there had been speculation that FAM leaders would step down to prevent a takeover by a FIFA-nominated committee, local media reported.“The resignations are to safeguard the reputation and institutional interests of (the association) and to mitigate the risk of further adverse consequences that could affect Malaysian football as a whole,” acting president Yusoff Mahadi told reporters.After Malaysia’s 4-0 victory over Vietnam in an Asian Cup qualifier last June, Fifa launched an investigation into the eligibility of seven foreign-born players on the Malaysian national team.Fifa’s “grandfather rule” allows foreign-born football players to represent countries that their biological parents or grandparents were born in.The rule aims to prevent national teams from simply importing foreign players to boost performance.But according to Fifa, FAM had forged birth certificates to make it look like the players’ grandparents were born in Malaysian cities like Penang and Malacca.Fifa investigators said the grandparents’ original birth certificates showed they had been born in countries like Argentina and Spain — all corresponding with the players’ birthplaces.This “constitutes, pure and simple, a form of cheating”, the football governing body said at the time. — Agencies