Grandfather’s rule scam: Malaysian Football Federation resigns

Deception by FIFA agents exposed

A scandal of historic proportions has led to the wholesale resignation of the top management of the Malaysian Football Federation. FIFA’s investigations have in fact brought to light a system of fictitious naturalisations: the national federation allegedly falsified documents attesting to the alleged Malaysian origins of seven national team players.

Grandpa rule scam

—

An epochal scam carried out by the Malaysian Football Federation, later discovered by FIFA during long investigations that began in September. The scam, which went down in history with the name of «grandfather’s rule» was based on the false registration of national team players. Players who, however, never had ancestors or relatives of Malaysian origin, while the local federation claimed they did. Everything was also proven by documents, which were later revealed false.

As for the footballers these are Facundo Garcés, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, João Figueiredo, Gabriel Palmero, Jon Irazabal and Héctor Hevel. The seven had also played in an Asian World Cup qualifier match against Vietnam. FIFA’s investigations began in September and investigators also managed to obtain original documents from the real countries of origin of the fake Malaysian footballers. The fake Malaysians, in reality, were actually born and raised in Argentina and Spain. This scam was not without consequences for them: in fact, all of them were disqualified for a year.

Malaysian Football Federation resigns

—

The leadership of the Malaysian Federation, faced with the impossibility of defending its position, she resigned en masse. In total, just eleven months after taking office, the entire executive committee of the body that manages football in Malaysia resigned. The resignation was justified as necessary “in order to safeguard the reputation and institutional interests of the FAM itself“. But that’s not all: FIFA, in fact, intervened with direct sanctions amounting to 450 thousand euros and placed the federation under special administration.