00:00Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said Malaysia has granted citizenship through naturalization not only to footballers but also to athletes from other sports and professionals in the fields of science and technology.
00:13Saifuddin said the Home Ministry, under his leadership and that of his predecessors, had approved citizenship for various athletes including Chinese-born race walker Yuan Yu Fang and Russian-born sports shooter turned coach Irina Maharani,
00:28as well as several gymnasts, basketball players and badminton coaches.
00:33Saifuddin was responding to a question from Sharizan Johan on whether the seven mixed heritage footballers from the Harimau Malaya squad, who were recently sanctioned by FIFA, had met the requirements for naturalization.
00:45FIFA said the Football Association of Malaysia had submitted doctored documents to field the players in an Asian Cup qualifier.
00:52The Global Football Body's probe found falsified documents claiming that the players' grandparents were Malaysian when records showed they were born in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands.
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