How FIFA Punishes the Global South: The Truth Behind Malaysia’s Player Ban

Okay. So today, we're gonna talk about something Malaysia centric, about something that made the news recently on the FIFA sanctions on seven Malaysian players national players over supposedly, this is claimed by FIFA that forged documentation on their naturalization process in Malaysia. So the seven players in question are not Malays or Malaysian born. However, they had done the Malaysian government's requirements of naturalization

Okay.

And have obtained Malaysian citizenship to represent the national football team. Right. And so

Which is pretty normal.

Apparently, FIFA has deemed the their citizenship as a a form of forgery and have, on that basis disqualified them and sanctioned the players from from playing

They're suspended.

They have been suspended as players. So they had their names are blacklisted. So they can't even represent any other teams or what okay. They can't They can't play.

For for how long?

For a year. For a year. For a year. So this is like a the the so so here, the Sultan of Johor is the, I suppose, owner of the football team. Okay.

I am not very clear about his his role, but I just know he has a key role here because he made he made he's been making the news. And he basically says that he's politically motivated. And that, you know,

this is So so I don't understand. Do they have Malaysian passports? Yes. So they are they are actually Malaysian citizens? Yes.

But they're not Malaysian born. I I I I remember that a number of them are from Argentina.

FIFA has deemed their naturalization pro procedures as a form of forgery, which is kind of funny because

What do they have to do with it?

Yeah. I I I'm confused myself.

FIFA now decides who is a citizen of what country? Not not the government of Malaysia, the government of Malaysia has has granted them citizenship, they are citizens. FIFA is deciding that no, you're not. How does that make any sense? What does FIFA have to do with it?

Of course it's politically motivated, how could it how could it not be? FIFA is is now saying that they can overrule the the determination of the Malaysian government about who is and who isn't a Malaysian. What gives them that authority? They have the passport, they have the citizenship, they are Malaysian by now nationality, but not by ancestry. And so FIFA needs them to have it by ancestry.

And so Malaysia apparently, allegedly submitted documentation that says that they do have ancestry and FIFA is now saying no they don't. There's a there's a forged documents. Right. So the is is defending the players. Yes.

He's concerned about the fact that the players have been now now now been suspended.

Yes. And out of a job

for Out of a job, loss of income, loss of even training and practice and experience.

Exactly.

At probably Attains the prime of their life. Wait, this is really a joke. Because like everyone knows France, example. Mhmm. You can have half of your team is Moroccan and Algerian.

But, okay, here's the thing. Most of the most of the Moroccan and Algerian players for France have French French ancestry.

Mhmm.

But why though? Yeah. So basically what it comes down to is that Malaysia is being punished, those players are being punished, and Malaysia is being punished because they weren't colonizers. Because Malaysia didn't colonize Argentina Gambia. Gambia, Brazil.

So that's why we don't in in Malaysia they don't have a multi generational pipeline from a colonized country into their country that they imported for cheap labor. Mhmm. And look, it's the same. It's like it's like like the like you already, we know again in France that the Algerians and the Moroccans, the North Africans in France are discriminated against. Mhmm.

And they are in the lower class. Mhmm. You brought them over there, or they their their parents or what have you, grandparents went over there because of the harsh conditions that your colonial occupation imposed in Algeria, and in Morocco, and and in North Africa. Mhmm. And then you basically chained them in the lower classes, the underclass Mhmm.

Giving them no opportunity for advancement except things like sports. Yep. You you created this now. This is this is France gets to gets to harvest the colonial crop, the crop of their previous empire. They're they're still harvesting it until now.

Like it's it's not Malaysia's fault that they didn't Conquer. That they didn't conquer and colonize and create these pipelines of of underclass, you know, refugees coming into their country from the countries that they were brutalizing.

That they can have So

that was their mistake. That was that was Malaysia's mistake. They should have gone around the world and occupied and colonized countries, so that then future generations could be their soccer players.

Yeah. I think this is the main point here that needs to be put forth in the face of FIFA and all all those who are having his moral grandstanding about this situation. Because, again, the fact of the matter is, like you pointed out rightly, that those countries that have all of these representatives who are not clearly French or Mhmm. You know, European, It's because of the legacy that they

have. Exactly. The only

legacy they have.

Exactly. Just the same way the same you way stole their natural resources, you stole their human resources Yeah. As well. Yeah. And you've still got them until now, and now you can call them French.

Mhmm. Now you can call them British. Now you can call them what what have you. Yeah. But Malaysia didn't do that.

Yeah. So they're trying to do what everyone else has done because obviously France wouldn't win any football tournaments if they didn't have those players. So now, not that Malaysia doesn't have talent, domestic, you know, homegrown talent, obviously they do. But bringing professional athletes from overseas who are already who are already good at what they do, who are already talented, this helps you to grow yours. Yes.

This helps you to grow your teams. Yep. Helps you to grow your expertise. Yep. It doesn't mean that you're going to just sort of piggyback on their talent.

Yeah. But the talent spreads and you can grow and you also bring in more revenue. Yeah. More investment that allows you to open training camps in, you know, Bahang or wherever else. Mhmm.

In Johor, in, you know

Different states?

Yeah. You can open up training camps, you can open up schools, and you can open up facilities to train your own athletes and improve. This is all part of, you know, the whole process of improving and developing in that sector.

Right.

And if you weren't a colonizer that was stealing people from other countries

Mhmm.

And then harvesting their their children and their grandchildren to kick footballs for you, so that your your national team can win. If you weren't doing that, then what are you supposed to do? Except, you know, and this is also like you're still you're still actually colonizing even like just again with France, you're still colonizing those players or say Argentina or where they got their players from here. Because why don't those players have a choice to to go to the highest bidder? Uh-huh.

I should be able to switch teams and go to another country that's going to pay me more, or that's going to value me more, give me more opportunities. But now because of the rules that you're setting on other countries, that no, you don't get to play for that country unless your great grandfather was born there. What is this?

Yeah. Meanwhile, you have great grandparents that you've enslaved of Mhmm. You know

That's the only reason why I'm playing on Exactly. Your

I mean, again, I don't want again, this this is 2025. You don't get to pose as moral grandstanders.

You don't get to do what the empires do. Yeah. This is no. This is what I'm saying. This is the rule.

This is what FIFA is saying.

Say two parts.

No. If you weren't if you weren't an imperial colonizer conqueror, you don't get the fruits that the imperial colonizer conquerors get.

Right.

Don't think that you can get what we get by a shortcut of being just fair and and recruiting professional players from abroad, from foreign countries, and giving them opportunities in your country. No, you don't get to do that. You have to prove basically that you were a colonizer a century ago. This is this is colonizer privilege.

Yeah. In other words, this is what the rest of us are hearing.

Yeah. This is what we hear. FIFA. Yeah. When you when you when you do this.

Like, okay, I don't know anything about the the documents or whatever, but you shouldn't have this clause in the first place. And if Malaysia was trying to fulfill your discriminatory prejudice, colonizer clause in FIFA's rules about recognizing naturalization, You made them do that because otherwise how are they supposed to do that? How are they supposed to get talent from overseas? You don't want anyone else to get talent from overseas unless you got that talent from overseas a century ago, and then harvest the crop of their babies and their grandchildren. That's what this is.

It's absolutely political. Yeah. Now FIFA needs to change. I don't think Malaysia did anything wrong. I don't think the Sultan did anything wrong.

FIFA needs to reform.

Yeah. FIFA needs to stop being a colonizer institution. You don't first of all, you don't get to decide what is and what isn't a nationality. What who is and who isn't a citizen. If it's good enough for the Malaysian government, it bloody well should be good enough for FIFA.

Who do you think you are? You think you're a government organization? Those those players can take their Malaysian passports and travel anywhere in the world, and and go to a Malaysian embassy anywhere in the world and be regarded as citizens, but somehow FIFA says, no, you're not. You'll always be Brazilian in our books, you'll always be Argentinian in our books. See how they look?

Yeah. See how they see?

They've always been like that though.

They don't Yeah. They don't believe in they they don't believe in this at all. This is this is this is extremely racist, extremely, again, the colonizer mentality. If you're if you if you were born Argentinian, you'll always be Argentinian. And the truth of the matter is you'll always be seen as Argentinian, or you'll always be seen as Algerian, even if you have the French passport.

Right. That's how they see you. You'll always be where you came from.

Yeah. Even if you win multiple Even

if you're even if Of course. When you win, you're French. When you lose, you're Algerian. That's everyone knows that. And even if you're even if you're even if you were born there, even if your grandfather or or your father was born there or your grandfather was was born there or came over there, you're still Algerian.

Even if you've never set foot in Algeria, They'll still see you as Algerian. Yeah. Or they'll still see you as Argentinian or Brazilian or Gambian, African, South American or what have you. Now FIFA is wrong. This is embarrassing for them.

Exactly. And they need to understand also that you you really shouldn't Okay. The days are over when you get to actually discriminate against the hemisphere in which all the talent is. Just because you took talent, the only reason that you have talent in Europe is because you took it generations ago. And and the the people that you took generations ago from Africa, from South America, they had talented children and talented grandchildren.

And also, because after you brought them over there, you didn't give them any opportunities except to pursue whatever survival that they could find, and maybe that was found for many people only in sports and entertainment. So just it's just like with America, that your most talented people are the people that you discriminate against the most. And one of one of the reasons that they are that that talented is because of the survival instinct on their part, and this is the only thing that we allow you to do, is to entertain us and amuse us. We're not going to let you into mainstream society, but we can let you kick a football, you know. We can let you throw a football, we can let you throw a baseball, we can let you throw a basketball, we can let you box, and we can let you dance and sing.

But we're not going to let you into mainstream into the mainstream economy. We're not going to give you the same opportunities that we give the people that we actually regard as French, The people that we actually regard as British. The people that we actually regard as American. And so because of your discrimination, their talent was honed in an environment in which that was their only method of for for survival and success. The talent comes from the global South.

Yeah. The the the the talent comes from the global South and then from your discrimination in your countries against the people from the global South that you stole, or that you coerced, or that you terrorized until they came to your country for refuge. So that you could exploit them because this is just a method another method of extraction. Extracted like I say, the natural resources and you extracted the human resources. And then in your country they honed their talent, they honed their skills and so forth.

But the talent, the origin of the talent is the colonized countries, the countries that you stole from, and it's from the global south. And FIFA needs to understand that the time is over when you get to do that. When you get to now discriminate against the hemisphere in which all of the talent is located. Because at the end of the day no one needs FIFA. All of this can be rearranged, and if you're going to take this kind of a stand and say basically only the European and the former colonized countries get to use the the the talent and the labor from the global south, and the global south doesn't get to do that.

And they can't have South South trade because that's what that is from Argentina, Gambia, Brazil and so forth to Malaysia, that's South South trade and that's the future. So you need to change your rules.

So the Sultan now the Sultan says, there's article 22 of the FIFA disciplinary code allows sanctions only for those who falsify or use horseback documents, which he stressed does not apply to the players. The players themselves are not responsible, you know FIFA continues to punish the players by misapplying the law, essentially. And he's he's gonna continue to stand by the players. He's gonna support them financially until the end. He explained that publicly.

And then he's also going to the court of arbitration for sport, and he for an independent it's it's an independent body to seek justice for the players.

And see, look at look at just that look at that response. Mhmm. If that was a Western country, they would throw the players under the bus. We didn't know they were frauds, we didn't know they were forgers, we didn't know they faked, they were trying to trick us into into the naturalization and and and claims about ancestry. They would throw them under the bus.

But the Sultan of Johor is standing by them and defending them, and that's the main thing he's concerned about.

Yeah.

Is their livelihood and their rights. He's not even thinking about you're accusing Malaysia of this and that and the other. He's concerned about the the the those players. Yeah. That wouldn't be the case in the West, they would throw them under the bus.

But he's trying to defend them. Now, FIFA is wrong and they are they're absolutely absolutely as political. Mhmm. Because also you're afraid at the end of the day, you're very afraid because the trend is already starting and it will continue that for example, you're not going to be able to take talent from the global South anymore because it's going to be South South. And you don't want that to happen.

And your own people, whatever talent you have that's not originally from the from the global South, that's not from the the the grandchildren of people that you colonized and that were born in your country by no fault of their own. But even if you have actual homegrown talent, you don't want to lose that to the global South. So you need to set these rules that basically as I say, penalize the global South for being the colonized and not the colonizer. You you're very tone deaf and you're really not reading the room in terms of the room being the the world and the way that the world is moving.

Yeah. And and kudos to the Sultan for standing

up. Absolutely. All the players. Absolutely.

And I hope he pushes this.

And you know and you know, there may be people who think that bringing in foreign talent undermines the development of local talent, and that the investment should be made in local talent. Obviously there are brilliant and and very talented players in Malaysia. But like I said, bringing in foreign talent helps with the development. This is a part of a strategy for developing Mhmm. The whole sports sector Yeah.

In Malaysia. It's it's a wise and foresightful move that's good for everybody. It's not, you you can't think short term. It's good for everybody. If you bring in some professional players that can now, you start winning because I think Malaysia really fell in the ranking.

And that was probably one of the reasons why they did this. Which is you're trying to help the whole industry, you're trying to help that whole sector. So I think everyone should should in in my opinion, Malaysians should stand behind this. Yeah. And and stand against FIFA in in what is really a very very obsolete, archaic view of the world, and a view of yourselves that you think that you can actually have this kind of power.

And like I said, tell Malaysia who is and who isn't a citizen and what citizenship we will recognize and which citizenship we will not recognize. As I said, if it's good enough for the government of Malaysia, it should be good enough for you.