Thai media urges Southeast Asia to stop naturalizing football players

Siam Sports has voiced a call for Southeast Asia to cease naturalizing football players at this time.

"Lesson from Indonesia: There are no shortcuts in world football; it’s time for Southeast Asia to start with a sustainable 'structure'," Siam Sports recently published an analysis about the trend urging Southeast Asian football to stop naturalizing players and instead focus on investing in youth development.

Using Indonesia’s recent mass naturalization and failure in the fourth round of World Cup qualifiers as an example, the author from Thailand’s leading sports daily pointed out: "Relying on foreign-born players is just a temporary painkiller, but it cannot cure the disease that has damaged the youth football structure.

The only sustainable way is to seriously develop your own internal 'structure' to become strong. You must start by building the foundation from scratch and gradually add layers with persistence and patience,"the author stated.

To illustrate this, Siam Sports cited football development models from some Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and more recently Uzbekistan and Jordan—teams that have made historic first-time qualifications to the World Cup finals.

"They did not achieve success overnight, but through years of youth development and relentless perseverance, they have produced results witnessed worldwide. Jordan, which reached the 2025 Asian Cup final, and Uzbekistan, whose players increasingly compete in major European leagues," Siam Sports wrote.

"The best examples are Japan and South Korea, nations that have emerged as Asian football powerhouses and have even competed against world-class teams at the World Cup finals.

Both countries have proven that football success begins with building a solid foundation. They have robust youth training systems, developed not in one, two, or five years, but through a serious and continuous process over 20-30 years,"the paper further affirmed.

"It’s time for Southeast Asian countries to deeply learn this lesson and abandon the belief in 'shortcuts'," the article concluded.