She stressed that her ministry would continue to support Harimau Malaya despite Fifa suspending seven naturalised players in the team.

“The current suspension only involves those seven players, but many people forget that Harimau Malaya still has local players,” she said, Bernama reported.

“During the match against Laos, we still had Faisal Halim, Arif Aiman and others. We cannot abandon our local footballers who continue to represent Malaysia.

“As long as we have a team and local players who need our support, we will continue to help them.”

She was speaking to reporters after officiating the flag handover ceremony for the Malaysian contingent bound for the 2025 Asian Youth Games in Bahrain and the 2025 Islamic Solidarity Games in Saudi Arabia.

Last month, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and seven naturalised players were penalised by Fifa’s disciplinary committee after the world football body said FAM had submitted falsified documents to confirm the eligibility of the players for the 2027 Asian Cup qualifier against Vietnam on June 10.

Fifa found falsified documents claiming that the players’ grandparents were Malaysian when records showed they were born in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands.

FAM was fined 350,000 Swiss francs (about RM1.8 million), while the players – Gabriel Felipe Arrocha, Facundo Garces, Rodrigo Holgado, Imanol Machuca, Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal and Hector Hevel – were each fined 2,000 Swiss francs (about RM10,560) and suspended for 12 months from all football-related activities.

FAM said it had identified a technical error in the submission process involving the seven players’ documents, which was made by an administrative staff member.

FAM has filed an official appeal with Fifa.