Malaysia: Consequences of 'quick-fix' policy and alarm bell for FIFA

Malaysia beat Vietnam with a strong squad of naturalized players on the field.

It is not only a legal issue when a country (intentionally or unintentionally) uses naturalized players against the rules. In the case of Malaysia, they were determined to have fielded many unqualified players in the 4-0 win over Vietnam in the final qualifying round of the 2027 Asian Cup.

More importantly, the wave of using naturalized players for temporary achievements has pushed Southeast Asian football into a costly race with no final destination. In fact, foreign players playing for Southeast Asian teams hardly have the level to bring the national team to the continental level. It only works for teams like the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore in the past to achieve achievements in the region.

The question is, in the cases of Thailand or Vietnam, when they have enough titles in Southeast Asia and are aiming for higher goals, does the naturalization policy have a positive effect?

Investing in youth training and creating strong internal resources is still the consistent policy of Vietnamese football.

In fact, after 2 AFF Cup championships with a team of "foreign players", Singapore's football has now declined and is no longer able to be in the top group. This is related to many factors regarding resources, besides finance, there are facilities, people... And it seems that Singapore, instead of investing heavily in football, has focused on sports where they have advantages, such as swimming.

From a world perspective, former FIFA President Sepp Blatter also warned FIFA in 2007 about the widespread naturalization policy, which could cause the World Cup to have "2-3 Brazilian teams".

The Vietnamese national team is clearly under considerable pressure due to the wave of naturalization in Southeast Asia. The difficulty for the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) is that if the national team loses, the pressure from fans will increase. Nguyen Xuan Son, Cao Pendant Quang Vinh or previous cases called up to the national team such as Phan Van Santos, Dinh Hoang La... all stem from the requirement of achievements. To balance between short-term pressure and long-term goals as well as aiming for healthy values of sports is not an easy problem.