Naturalized Malaysian player fired by Spanish club, uncertain future

Left-back Gabriel Palmero is owned by Spanish club Deportivo Tenerife. However, Deportivo Tenerife loaned Gabriel Palmero to Spanish third division club Unionistas de Salamanca.

Yesterday, the two teams Tenerife and Salamanca issued a joint announcement, sacking Gabriel Palmero, including terminating his loan contract at Salamanca and terminating his professional contract at Tenerife.

Cầu thủ nhập tịch Malaysia bị CLB Tây Ban Nha sa thải, tương lai bấp bênh - 1 — Left-back Gabriel Palmero had his contract terminated by his club (Photo: NST).

Notably, this decision was made by two Spanish clubs, just 4 days after FIFA rejected the appeal of Malaysian football, upholding the one-year "suspension" of 7 Malaysian naturalized players using fake documents. One of these 7 is Gabriel Palmero.

The official announcement of Deportivo Tenerife Club reads: “Unionistas de Salamanca Club has reached an agreement with Deportivo Tenerife to terminate the loan contract of left-back Gabriel Palmero”

“This decision was made after FIFA announced the suspension of this player on September 26, and rejected the appeal of Gabriel Palmero and the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) on November 3,” Deportivo Tenerife added.

According to the Spanish teams, they did not compensate or support Gabriel Palmero with any money. This player left empty-handed.

Salamanca said: “The agreement between the parties does not cause any financial loss to the club. Unionistas de Salamanca would like to thank Palmero for his contributions during his time at the club.”

Some other players, in the group of 7 naturalized Malaysian players recently dealt with by FIFA, such as Facundo Garces (playing for Alaves Club, Spain), Imanol Machuca (Velez Sarsfield Club, Argentina) are also facing uncertain futures.