KUALA LUMPUR: The Premier League quagmire involving Negri Sembilan and Kelantan is getting murkier.
Negri had cried foul over Malaysian Football League's (MFL) decision not to forfeit Kelantan's 2-1 win over them at the Sultan Mohd IV Stadium on Aug 27.
Kelantan are said to have gone against Fifa's rules by bringing in five reserve players on four occasions during the match when the maximum number of times permitted are three.
MFL have fined Kelantan RM30,000 for the infringement and will take action against the match officials involved. However, MFL have been silent on whether they will award a 3-0 win to Negri.
If Negri are awarded three points for the Kelantan infringement, they will top the Premier League with 38 points from 18 matches, overtaking Sarawak United, who lead on 37 from 17 games.
However, Kelantan's chief operating officer Norizam Tukiman said today that the match official should be blamed for the fiasco, not his team.
"We want to make a statement on the protest lodged by Negri on player substitution which allegedly broke competition rules," he said.
"We want to stress that the approval for the substitution was given by the fourth official to make our fifth change two minutes into added time. Our assistant coach had checked with the fourth official who allowed the change.
"We feel it's not fair for Kelantan to be blamed for the official's mistake. We hope MFL will take a fair decision on this incident."
According to FIFA's Disciplinary Code, if a player is fielded in a match despite being ineligible, the team are sanctioned with a forfeit and are considered to have lost the match 3-0.
In a similar incident in the German Cup on Aug 17, Wolfsburg were thrown out of the competition for making an extra substitution against Preussen Munster. The German FA awarded Munster a 2-0 win.
And in 2016, FAM had forfeited Kedah's win over Pahang in a Super League match after the Red Eagles fielded an ineligible player.