Forget social media influencers, there’s much work to do in football

SINCE young, we were always told to be careful when filling out documents.

Take me as a case in point. When I applied to several universities after completing my secondary education, my father would sit beside me and ensure I got every detail right.

Since then, I have always read the guidelines, assessed my eligibility, and filled things out properly.

I would imagine that bigger organisations would have greater scrutiny and better advice from their legal heads.

So, when the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) said recently Go Ahead Eagles wingback Mats Deijl was not eligible to don the colours of Harimau Malaya, I was wondering why they had even tried to get the Dutch player on board when he clearly does not fit the criteria under the FIFA’s article seven.

The FIFA rules on eligibility are clear. A players is only allowed to switch nationalities if his biological mother or father or grandmother and grandfather are from the territory, in this case, Malaysia.

According to FAM’s statement, Deijl has Malaysian blood through an ancestor (the mother of the player’s grandfather), born in Singapore on June 24, 1893. Obviously, he is not eligible if the article is read in its essence.

Now, the ones taking the brunt of the derision are FAM and their president Tan Sri Hamidin Mohd Amin.

He had announced - no, he had confirmed - that Deijl and Wan Kuzain Wan Kamal would represent the nation soon.

Now, Deijl is out of the picture. Kuzain, who plays for MLS Next Pro side St. Louis City SC, is eligible as his parents are from Malaysia but the wait for his documentation seems to be agonising.

Meanwhile, there are football pages claiming that several European professionals are eligible to play for Malaysia thanks to their ancestry.

There is one named FR Future Talents, who scouted several players and believe that some players have Malaysian roots. Some of the high-profile names listed are Burney captain Josh Brownhill, PSV Eindhoven winger Iggy Houben and Birmingham City centreback Dion Sanderson.

Those following this page have pressed FAM to check on these players’ eligibility, as they want Malaysia to have more mixed-heritage players, just like neighbours and rivals Indonesia, who are filled with Dutch-born players with Indonesian roots.

But I do hope FAM are more stringent this time and are not swayed by all this ancestry talk. If their parents or grandparents weren’t born in Malaysia, they are not eligible. We should just forget about them.

There are other pressing matters that need to be addressed, not just for FAM, but for Malaysian football as a whole.

We only have a 13-team top division league and it could further dwindle next season, no thanks to several financially strapped clubs, with a number of them messing up with salaries. Then, we have a league schedule that is also messed up, with second-round league fixtures not completely revealed yet.

Also, why should teams that qualified for continental competitions be allowed to have 12 foreign players? A proposal was submitted and it was mutually agreed.

I wonder why the league partners, in this case the clubs, are not pressing for better scheduling and a better implementation of the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

Our underage players aren’t up to mark in international tournaments, and there are concerns that these players would not get competitive outings domestically due to the influx of foreign players.

The performances of JDT winger Arif Aiman Hanapi in the AFC Champions League Elite show that locals can be world beaters. Proper grassroots work has to be in place to produce more Arif Aimans. That is something where we have been found wanting in recent years.

There are many problems at home that need to be addressed.

Instead of listening opinions on social media, it is time we get to work and ensure that what we do is within the rules.

*The writer also wonders if national footballer Faisal Halim will get answers for what happened to him on May 5. The nation never forgets.