KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 — Heritage players or players with Malaysian ancestry should only be selected if they are able to make a difference to Harimau Malaya and they should not be randomly fitted into the team.

The view was expressed by national football legend, Datuk Dollah Salleh who described using heritage players as national football linchpins should be stopped because not all of those players play at a high level football.

"This is our problem, whenever there are heritage players playing in foreign clubs we must consider them like stars, even though we don’t know what division they are playing in, sometimes they are just ordinary teams. But if they are eligible, why not?

"Don’t blindly recruit him just because he plays overseas, when he gives no impact to the team. Naturalised players should also not be haphazardly chosen and we must remember that our local players are just as good so we need to make sure that foreign players do not deprive slots for local players,” he told reporters recently.

At the same time, Dollah said that local players should also be highlighted to filling slots as Harimau Malaya to represent the country.

Last Thursday, Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) president Datuk Hamidin Mohd Amin announced that the Harimau Malaya squad is expected to receive another heritage player soon in St Louis City II striker Wan Kuzain Wan Kamal of the United States. — Bernama