Naturalisation Of Seven Heritage Players Comply With Conditions, In Accordance With Legal Provisions - Saifuddin Nasution

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 (Bernama) -- A total of 23 football players have been granted Malaysian citizenship through the naturalisation process since 2018, including seven national heritage players who were approved in accordance with all legal and constitutional provisions, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.

He said each application is processed in accordance with Article 19 of the Federal Constitution and the Citizenship Rules 1964, which set three main conditions, namely that the applicant must be resident in Malaysia, be of good conduct and have sufficient knowledge of the Malay language.

"So let me explain again, citizenship applications, how many football players have we approved, 23 including those seven," he said during Minister’s Question Time (MQT) at Dewan Rakyat today.

Saifuddin Nasution was responding to a question by Zakri Hassan (PN-Kangar) on the statistics of players who have been naturalised since 2018 until now as well as the qualifications and criteria used by the government or the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) in the process of determining a player to be naturalised.

He stressed that the naturalization process of the seven players had gone through thorough screening and assessment by the National Registration Department (NRD), including interviews and biometric checks, before being granted citizenship.

“Does the process of granting citizenship to these seven players comply with all the provisions of the constitution, acts, citizenship rules and the Federal Constitution? The answer is yes, bold and very clear,” he said.

He said this in response to Zakri's supplementary question regarding the period for preparing player documents by the NRD, the possibility of forgery of documents and the actions of the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) to address issues that allegedly affected the country's image.

The media previously reported that FAM and seven national naturalised players were sanctioned by the Disciplinary Committee of the International Football Association Board (FIFA), after being found to have violated Article 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) relating to forgery of documents.

The seven players are Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Tomas Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Javier Machuca, Joao Vitor Brandao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal Iraurgui and Hector Alejandro Hevel Serrano.

Saifuddin Nasution also explained that apart from football players, KDN had also approved applications for citizenship status for athletes in other sports such as gymnastics, shooting, basketball and badminton, as well as highly skilled individuals in the fields of science, medicine and engineering who contributed to the country.

Meanwhile, at a press conference, Saifuddin Nasution said the Home Ministry explained the use of the exemption power under Section 20(1)(i) of the Second Schedule of Part Three of the Federal Constitution to enable the seven footballers to be granted citizenship status without violating the law.

He said the provision empowers the minister to consider an applicant as resident in Malaysia even though they are abroad on reasonable grounds.

"When we invoke this section, the first thing is deemed to have been met. The applicant is of good conduct, has a clean safety record and possesses sufficient knowledge. So we confirm the qualifications according to the country's constitution," he said.

Saifuddin Nasution said the NRD also uses Section 10A of the Birth and Death Registration Act 1957 for re-registration of births if the registrar general is satisfied with the evidence submitted, including through interviews and review of supporting documents.

“The law allows the registrar general to register a birth if there is sufficient evidence. There is no need to include the birth certificate of a grandparent as raised because it is not a requirement under Article 19,” he said.

Responding to allegations of forgery of documents by international bodies, he stressed that all documents issued by the NRD were valid and based on Malaysian law.

Saifuddin Nasution said the rules for representing the country were subject to the FIFA Statutes which outlined four categories of eligibility for heritage players.

“That is the jurisdiction of FAM and FIFA. The issue of player heritage is compliance with international football regulations, not the country’s citizenship law,” he said.

-- BERNAMA