KUALA LUMPUR: The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) are not aware of Kuala Lumpur City (KL City) FC’s efforts to make their imported striker Romel Morales a naturalised player.
FAM secretary-general Noor Azman Rahman said that FAM had never issued a letter of support since the naturalisation process is now managed by the Malaysian League teams and not by the country’s football governing body.
“FAM no longer are involved in naturalising players, The last time we did was to naturalise Brazilian-born player Guilherme de Paula and Liridon Krasniqi from Kosovo.
“After that, we left everything to the clubs or the states to do the naturalisation process,” he said when met here.
On 17 August 2021, FAM decided to stop their naturalisation programme, but Malaysian League teams can still apply to the government to naturalise their respective imported players.
Yesterday, KL City chief executive officer Stanley Bernard said the club’s management is actively working to ensure that Morales, who is a Colombian-born player, is given citizenship and ‘local boy’ status in the near future.
However, Stanley said the 26-year-old player had not yet complied with the maturity period to be registered as a naturalised player as stipulated by the International Football Federation (Fifa).
Apart from de Paula and Liridon, the Harimau Malaya (national squad) currently have several other naturalised players namely Mohamadou Sumareh, Endrick Dos Santos, Sergio Aguero, Lee Tuck and Paulo Josue. – BERNAMA
