KUALA LUMPUR – Is there a Harimau Malaya imposter out there pretending to be the country’s national football team?
Recently, a video had made the rounds on social media, with football pundit Mark Stafford explaining on the What a Lad podcast that LA Galaxy had played a friendly match against a fake Harimau Malaya squad.
— No Context Bola Malaysia (@nocontextbolamy) November 17, 2022
In the podcast, Stafford explained that LA Galaxy received an invitation from the Malaysian team for a friendly game against the California side as a warm-up for the Asian Cup.
“They (fake Harimau Malaya) sent a letter and contacted LA Galaxy, saying that they would pay for the stadium in LA, while the players will be given a fee and the game will serve as a warm-up for the Asian Cup.
“They (LA Galaxy) said to come and visit them, so the president flew over and went to see them, signed the deal, and it was all done,” said Stafford on the podcast.
Two months later, Stafford said the supposed team from Malaysia went to LA for the game, which ended in a 4-1 victory for the home side.
“It then came out that it wasn’t the Malaysian national football team, just a match fixer who had made up a letterhead and a bunch of players on the take.
“They put copied Malaysian national jerseys on them, took the team to LA, and said there needs to be five goals in this game,” he added.
Stafford explained that the match fixer had punted the game on the black market to have five or more goals, which it did, and the returns from the match fixing covered all the expenses and won the fake team millions.
Football Association of Malaysia secretary-general Noor Azman Rahman said the governing body is shocked by the matter.
“We will send this matter to the integrity committee for further investigations into the allegations in the podcast before taking the next step,” he said.
Formed in 2012, the integrity committee consists of representatives from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Royal Malaysian Police.
These allegations resemble the 2009 incident when a club pretending to be the Zimbabwe national team played Malaysia twice, making them the victims of the ruse.
Zimbabwe FA later confirmed that those matches were made by convicted match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal from Singapore. – The Vibes, November 18, 2022.
