Argentine newspaper reveals secret origin of illegal Malaysian naturalized star

(Dan Tri) - La Nacion (Argentina) newspaper said that the Malaysian Football Federation (FAM) used magic to cheat so that Argentine players could wear the Malaysian national team's jersey.

FIFA has accused FAM of falsifying the records of seven naturalized players, Gabriel Palmero, Facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal and Hector Hevel, ahead of the match against Vietnam in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers.

La Nacion newspaper said that FAM had conjured up magic to make Argentine players wear the Malaysian national team's jersey (Photo: FAM).

According to FIFA's investigation, the above players do not have grandparents born in Malaysia as the documents provided by FAM. Instead, these people were born in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands.

The issue of Malaysian football is also of interest to the Argentine press as three players, Facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, and Imanol Machuca, are of Argentine blood.

La Nacion commented: “Migration for various reasons has changed the world of football, and with it, the face of national teams. We can mention the player Gelson Fernandes, who was born in Cape Verde but chose to play for Switzerland, the country he moved to when he was 5 years old. Or Oliver Sonne, who is originally from Denmark but chose to play for Peru because that is where his grandmother was born. FIFA never asked them how much they knew about their new shirt.

No serious football federation does not look abroad for its “talented bloodline”. That is the secret of success for many teams from countries with a long history of economic or political migration.

The most obvious example is Morocco, the team ranked 4th at the 2022 World Cup. They have 14 foreign-born players out of a total of 26. At youth level, the Morocco U20 team also just won the U20 World Cup in Chile with 10 players out of 21 born abroad.

Even Argentina have had to look abroad for talent. Several of the current U17 youngsters, such as José Castelau de Roa (a Spaniard with an Argentine father) and Can Guner (a German with an Argentine mother), were discovered through a scouting system.

However, if you want to build a multi-ethnic team, at least all the documents must be valid. This is not the case with Malaysian football. They massively naturalized 10 people (including the bench) from Barbados, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Finland and Argentina (3 players).

La Nacion newspaper made it clear that the Argentine players who were recently naturalized in Malaysia have no roots in the Southeast Asian country (Photo: FAM).

The new recruits include Joao Figueiredo (Brazil), Jon Irazabal (Spain) and three Argentinian players: Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca and Facundo Garces. The rest have played in previous matches.

According to the rules, a player can play for another team if his father, mother or grandparents were born in that country. However, the problem is that Malaysia deliberately manipulated the records to make these players eligible.

Take for example the two players Imanol Machuca and Facundo Garces. They both have the same agent. The suspicious coincidence is that in the Malaysian documents, both players’ grandparents were born in Penang (Malaysia). However, copies of their birth certificates obtained by FIFA show a completely different story.

Facundo Garces' grandfather, Carlos Fernandez, was born in Villa Maria Selva (Santa Fe, Argentina), and Machuca's grandmother, Concepcion Agueda Alaniz, was born in Roldan, about 25 km from Rosario (Argentina).

Somehow, Malaysia conjured these people up to be born thousands of kilometers away.

When the Barros Schelotto brothers asked Machuca if he had any relatives in Malaysia, he simply replied: “My grandmother,” then turned and walked away. However, Machuca then immediately went to Malaysia to “settle the matter.”

According to Ricardo Alvarez, Sports Director of the parent club Velez Sarsfield, the reason given by Machuca's representative is hard to believe. They said that the player is on vacation in Malaysia. FAM has not yet been able to submit the original nationality documents to FIFA but they will soon add them.

La Nacion newspaper said that the mass naturalization of players from high-quality football backgrounds is a trend in Asian football, as in the case of Indonesia or the UAE. Malaysia also wanted to do that, but was too hasty and went the wrong way.

The Argentine newspaper concluded: “This could be one of the most severe cases that FIFA has dealt with in recent times. Perhaps, the world football authority realizes that it is necessary to put a limit on this trend of “indiscriminate naturalization”, which is not known where it will go. Victory does not belong to the team that trains good players, but to the one with the money to recruit players from all over the world.”

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/bao-argentina-noi-ro-bi-mat-goc-gac-cua-sao-nhap-tich-trai-phep-malaysia-20251024233725475.htm