"Audition" 37 Argentine players! Malaysia's batch naturalization has caused controversy

Written by Han Bing In the round of 18, relying on as many as 20 naturalized players, the Indonesian team entered the world preliminary play-offs for the first time in history, pushing the naturalization tide of Asian football to a new height, but Indonesia is not the only one, on June 1, Malaysian media announced that the second phase of the "Malaysian overseas players" selection will be launched in August. The Malaysian Football Federation has identified as many as 37 Argentine players with Malaysian ancestry, with plans to select between six and 10 players to participate in the warm-up matches in September. This is the largest centralized "audition" of blood naturalization in Asian and even world football, which has naturally aroused heated discussions in Asian and even world football.

The Malaysian Football Association's plan mainly seeks naturalization of players with Malaysian blood from Latin football powers such as Argentina, Brazil, and Spain, but South America is not a traditional overseas area where Malaysians live abroad, so whether the naturalized players' bloodline is compliant has been widely questioned.

Previously, Malaysia's naturalization targets were mainly foreign aid who had served in Malaysia for more than 5 years, as well as Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, where Malaysians lived more overseas. In 2018, the Malaysian Football Association launched a naturalization strategy, and Gambian winger Soumare, who has played in the Malaysian Super League for five years, became the first non-naturalized player. However, in August 2021, the naturalization tide was temporarily stranded due to the Malaysian team's failure to participate in the top 12 of the World Preliminaries.

In December 2022, the Malaysian Football Association (FA) began to move again to other Commonwealth countries to find naturalized players. In the Asian Cup at the beginning of 2024, Malaysia has a 26-man squad, and there are as many as 13 naturalized players. Among them, 4 are from Brazil, Gambia and Colombia, and 9 naturalized players are from England and 2 from Australia.

In June 2024, Malaysia was beaten by Oman and missed the round of 18 of the World Preliminaries, and two months later, the Malaysian Football Association announced that it would suspend the naturalization process and would conduct in-depth research and adjustment of the naturalization strategy.

In March this year, the Malaysian Football Association launched the first phase of the "Overseas Players" strategy. Spanish left-back Pamelo (Tenerife, La B) and Dutch midfielder Jevel (Portimão, Portuguese Super League) were the first to naturalize. Last year, Hevel played for Chinese League One side Guangxi Pingguo, a Dutch national at the time, and played for both the Netherlands Under-16 and Under-20 national youth teams, before becoming a Malaysia international a year later.

In the crucial match of the Asian Cup qualifiers against Vietnam in June, Malaysia naturalized five South American and Spanish players in one go. These include Spanish defender Irazabal (Saba, Azerbaijan Super League), Argentine central defender Garcés (Alaves, La B), striker Holgado (América de Cali, Colombia Liga), winger Macchuca (Sarsfield, La Liga), Brazilian striker Figueiredo (Guaisui City, Turkish Super League).

As a result, Malaysia won 4-0 at home, achieving the biggest victory in team history against Vietnam, and also ending its 10-year winless record, two and a half years ago, Malaysia, which relied on traditional naturalized players, had a 0-3 defeat at the feet of Vietnam, and now, Malaysia, a naturalized player from high-level leagues such as the Turkish Super League, La B, A, and Colombia League, the strength is not what it used to be.

Southeast Asian media have questioned whether Malaysia's naturalization is compliant, and the Malaysian Football Association has not released the certification materials of the first batch of seven naturalized players this year. This time, the Malaysian Football Association "auditioned" naturalized players in Argentina, with as many as 37 players, a 12-fold surge compared with June, which naturally caused a huge heated discussion.

It is a fact that a few hours before the match between Malaysia and Vietnam in June, FIFA confirmed the qualifications of five naturalized players, and the Malaysian Football Association was rightly confident. However, Aminu Rashid, a lawyer in the country's football field, said that such a large-scale "audition" naturalization could lead to an investigation by FIFA.

Vietnamese media even compared Malaysia's Latin-based naturalized players to Timor-Leste, which was sanctioned by FIFA in 2017, when they forged pedigree documents to naturalize eight Brazilian players, and in the end, the results of the 29 matches played by the eight fake naturalized players were nullified, and Timor-Leste was also denied the qualification for the 2023 Asian Cup.

If Argentina's "audition" can be passed, Malaysia will become a new powerhouse not only in Southeast Asia, but also in the whole of Asia.