Sports Minister Hannah Yeah posing with the national athletes gearing up for the Asian Youth Games. - Bernama
PUTRAJAYA: The government's aid and allocation for the national football team will not be stopped because there are still many local players representing the Harimau Malaya squad on the international stage, said Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh.
She stressed that her ministry will continue to support the national squad, even though the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) is facing the issue of the suspension of seven heritage players by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA).
"...the current sanction decision is against those seven players, but many forget that the Harimau Malaya team still has (local players).
"Like the match against Laos, there are still Faisal Halim, Arif Aiman, and others. We can't just stop helping the local football players who are still playing for the Malaysian team.
As long as we have a team and local players who need our support, we will continue our efforts to help them," she said.
Hannah was responding after the Jalur Gemilang flag handing (Malaysian flag) to the Malaysian Contingent for the 2025 Asian Youth Games in Bahrain and the 2025 Islamic Solidarity Games in Saudi Arabia, here today.
The 2025 Asian Youth Games will take place from Oct 22-31 with the participation of 120 national athletes in 17 types of sports, while the 2025 Islamic Solidarity Games is scheduled to run from Nov 7-21, with 17 national athletes set to compete in five types of sports.
In the same development, Hannah explained that her ministry maintain thwue stance to wait for FIFA's full decision before issuing any official statement on the matter.
Last month, FAM and seven national heritage players, namely Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal, and Hector Hevel, were disciplined by the FIFA disciplinary committee after being found to have violated Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) related to document forgery.
In a statement, FIFA informed that FAM had submitted falsified documents to confirm the eligibility of the players, which allowed them to play in the third round of the 2027 Asian Cup Qualifiers match against Vietnam on June 10.
Consequently, FAM were fined CHF350,000 (approximately RM1.8 million) while each player was fined CHF2,000 (approximately RM10,560) and suspended for 12 months from all football-related activities, effective from the date of notification of the decision.
Meanwhile, FAM acting president Datuk Mohd Yusoff Mahadi was reported to have said that FAM had filed an official appeal to FIFA regarding the disciplinary decision on the documentation issue of the seven national players' eligibility.
He said his side acted quickly after receiving FIFA's full judgement on Oct 7, with FAM's legal team completing all documents to be submitted before the deadline. - Bernama
