They came to explain — and made it scapegoat time.

At Wisma FAM yesterday, the country’s football leaders faced the press to outline an appeal against Fifa’s sanctions.

They left with a suspension, a promise of an inquiry, and a room full of harder questions.

FAM deputy president S Sivasundaram began with a chronology of events. Only after he finished did he reveal that general secretary Noor Azman Rahman had been suspended.

He said it was with immediate effect and that an independent committee would be formed.

No names. No terms of reference. No timetable.

The decision to suspend Noor Azman may have been meant to show decisiveness. Yet it risks coming across as scapegoating.

Suspension can be legitimate. It can shield an inquiry from interference.

It can also be the easiest theatre of accountability — remove one man, keep the system intact.

In a scandal that touches the verification chain, the public deserved to hear who in the secretariat signed off, who certified documents, and how cross-border checks were done.

Instead, they heard an announcement and an inference: someone had to pay.

When journalists asked who vetted the seven players’ documentation before they were fielded, officials deflected and offered partial answers.

That dodge was the press conference’s central failure. It is also the reason the suspension feels incomplete: accountability must be more than a headline.

Sivasundaram’s repeated refrain — “Just be patient” — summed up the day.

Patience was asked of the public; preparedness was not asked of FAM.

A defensive line, not leadership

The optics were immediate and ugly. The microphones changed hands more than the ball in a bad midfield.

Questions on dates, documents and verification bounced among officials. The answers rarely landed.

“We are here to explain that the appeal has been made,” Sivasundaram said. The sentence told the room everything it needed to know.

It was bureaucratic, not accountable. Process was foregrounded; principle was not.

Asked when the seven naturalised players received their MyKad and passports, Sivasundaram faltered before answering.

He finally said the applications were made in January this year, and that the players received their identity cards in May — a span of about four months.

Pressed on who vetted their ancestral claims, officials offered nothing.

When asked if the complainant was from Vietnam, Sivasundaram hedged: “believed to be.”

Each evasion deepened the impression that FAM was managing perception, not owning failure.

Rob Friend, the national team CEO, spoke with outward composure but little clarity.

He praised Tunku Ismail Ibrahim’s “vision” and dismissed any suggestion of the Johor royal’s involvement.

He referenced travel to Zurich and Miami to “understand what had happened” — a strange defence when the public’s urgent question was simpler: how did these documents reach Fifa with apparent defects?

FAM’s Geneva-based legal counsel, Serge Vittoz, present to advise, was steady on procedure — until asked if he was in Malaysia on a work permit. Then, he seemed unsettled.

It summed up the press conference perfectly — advisers on stage, answers nowhere.

The wider damage

Fifa’s finding was stark: documents submitted in support of the players’ eligibility were forged, and the association and the seven players were fined.

The world body’s sanctions struck at the heart of competitive integrity. That fact alone demands clear, public remedial action — not procedural theatre.

Worse, this affair sits against a raw backdrop. Many Malaysians wait years for proper identity documentation. Stateless children remain in limbo.

That dysfunction makes the optics of expedited, contested citizenship for elite athletes toxic.

It is not merely a sports governance problem; it is a social wound.

FAM has appealed. Given Fifa’s evidence and the gravity of the findings, that appeal looks unlikely to succeed.

Even if it did, a successful legal argument would not automatically restore public trust.

If the suspension is serious and not symbolic, FAM must publish the independent committee’s terms, membership and timeline without delay.

If it is merely performative, expect public anger to deepen.

Scapegoating without systemic reform will only postpone reckoning.

The press conference promised explanation and delivered spectacle. It offered a man as a stand-in for answers. That will not suffice.

Malaysians did not tune in for theatre. They wanted the truth.

Accountability begins with that truth — not with finding someone convenient to blame.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.