Listen, I have no idea who designed FIFA’s Disciplinary Code, but I suspect it was someone whose idea of a good time is filling out tax returns in triplicate. Because when it comes to the ongoing kerfuffle between the global governing body and the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), FIFA has performed a spectacular manoeuvre: they’ve managed to turn a simple case of bureaucratic idiocy into an international act of moral treason.

And frankly, I’m livid.

Let’s start with the facts, because even a simpleton like me can grasp them. The FAM, bless its cotton socks, had seven heritage players—seven perfectly good footballers who, through some utterly baffling administrative alchemy, ended up with documentation that was, let’s call it, creatively adjusted. In short: forged and/or falsified papers were submitted.

The penalty? Losing points, fines—the works. And you know what? Fine. Perfectly deserved. If you’re going to run a multi-million dollar national sports association, you shouldn’t be operating with the diligence of a student cramming for an exam using Wikipedia. Gross negligence? Absolutely. Failure of due process? Of course. Let the hammer fall upon the fools responsible.

But this is where FIFA, in a move of truly breathtaking institutional arrogance, decided to ditch the legal dictionary and pick up a thesaurus for toddlers. They declared this entire, messy, bureaucratic blunder “constitutes, pure and simple, a form of cheating, which cannot in any way be condoned.”

“Cheating.”

Oh, do get a grip.

This isn’t just about semantics; this is about legal laziness masquerading as moral righteousness.

FIFA has the resources of, well, a small country, but they don’t have the investigative powers of a state police force. They can’t wiretap, they can’t kick down doors, and they certainly can’t interrogate the dark overlords who actually commit genuine, world-ending acts of corruption.

So, when they encounter a case like this—a complex tangle of paperwork where the evidence suggests negligence, incompetence, and maybe some shadowy rogue employee trying to speed things up—they hit the panic button. They know that to prove “criminal intent” or “wilful malice” they’d have to subscribe to the high standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” and frankly, that sounds like work.

So what do they do? They pull out the Convenient Sledgehammer of Shame. They bypass the need for rigorous legal inquiry, slap the nuclear label of “cheating” on the entire operation, and dust their hands off. It’s the ultimate bureaucratic shortcut: when in doubt, just imply criminal intent.

If you don’t have the resources to properly prosecute a crime, you simply do not have the liberty to extend criminal intent. You stick to the facts you can prove: procedural violation, gross negligence, foolishness—whatever. But you don’t drop a lifetime label on a nation because it’s easier than hiring a decent forensic accountant.

This is the part that drives me to drink. That one, clumsy, utterly devastating word—”cheat”—doesn’t stick to some dusty file cabinet in the FAM office. It sticks to the entire nation. It stains the flag.

The stupidity of a few administrative ninnies is now being used to suggest that the country, culturally, institutionally, and fundamentally, “thrives upon cheating.” Are we seriously branding 34 million people—the hard-working fans, the aspiring schoolboy players, the volunteers—with the stigma of malice because of a failure of diligence?

It’s absurd. It’s cowardly. It’s an abuse of institutional power that allows FIFA to feel tough without having to do the actual, difficult work of fighting real systemic crime.

I have no idea how FAM and their expensive lawyers intends to go about this, but here’s my views of why FAM still needs to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It isn’t about the points deduction or the fine. It’s about a fight for legal grammar. We need the CAS to look FIFA straight in their expensive, Swiss-based eyeballs and demand judicial precision.

The goal is to force the ruling to remove the word “cheating” and replace it with something accurate, like “gross, unforgivable, career-ending negligence.”

If you want to issue a lifetime ban for match-fixing, then by all means, prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. If you’re going to issue a fine and a points deduction for a bureaucratic balls-up, then stick to the facts: they were fools. But don’t you dare conflate a paperwork disaster with a moral crime just because you couldn’t be bothered to finish your homework.

CAS must send a clear message back to the Zurich ivory tower: Labels have weight. Use them correctly, or keep it to yourself.