The judicial novel involving seven players naturalized by Malaysia, including Argentines Imanol Machuca, Facundo Garcés and Rodrigo Holgado, added a new chapter this Thursday. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) decided to partially estimate the appeal filed by the players and confirmed the twelve-month sanction imposed by FIFA, although it limited the punishment exclusively to the dispute of official matches
.The conflict originated in mid-2025, when the Malaysian national team lined up seven nationalized players, including the three Argentines, in a match against Vietnam for the second round of the qualifiers for the 2027 Asian Cup.
In September of that year, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee concluded that false documentation had been used in the process of obtaining citizenship and applied a harsh sanction: twelve months without participating in any activity related to soccer, in addition to financial fines.












