COMMENT | By any measure, the scandal surrounding the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and its naturalised players is a national embarrassment.

What began as a quiet attempt to bolster Malaysia’s football squad has unravelled into a tale of falsified facts, doctored documents, and institutional complicity culminating in a damning investigative note from the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa), the world’s governing body for football.

Let’s be clear: this was not a clerical error or a misunderstanding as claimed - documents were forged. Facts were manipulated. And for a good part of it, the government played facilitator.

When the scheme was exposed, those involved...