Now, the national women's football team want foreign-based players too

New Straits Times

4 days ago

KUALA LUMPUR: It seems not only the national men's football team are getting foreign-born players, their women's counterparts want to do the same too.
Theree foreign-based players are expected to join the Malayan Tigress for the 2026 Under-20 Asian Cup qualifiers.
FAM women's football committee chairman Datuk Suraya Yaacob revealed that the "foreign trio" will join the national team for the Asian qualifiers in Kuala Lumpur from Aug 6-10.
She said the recent Constitutional (Amendment) Act 2024, which allows children born abroad to Malaysian mothers and non-citizen fathers to automatically receive Malaysian citizenship, will help expand the national talent pool.
Suraya said the recent success of the national men's team — who included several foreign-based players — has sparked interest from overseas-based women's footballers.
"The citizenship amendment widened the talent pool for us, and we are grateful to the government. We will be getting three foreign-based players to join our national Under-20 team for the Asian Cup qualifiers," said Suraya.
"We are open to foreign-based players, but they still need to be assessed before representing our national teams. We've received a lot of applications from players abroad, including from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
"These foreign-based players are interested in playing for Malaysia after seeing the progress made by the men's team. Now that they can represent Malaysia despite being based abroad, it also opens up more opportunities for their football careers."
The Malayan Tigress bowed out of the 2026 women's Asian Cup qualifiers last week. They eked out 1-0 wins over Palestine and hosts Tajikistan, but suffered a 6-0 defeat to Group H champions North Korea.