Indonesia World Cup bid still hopeful of Government backing

By Duncan Mackay

January 4 – Indonesia remains confident of the country’s Government backing its bid to host the 2022 World Cup, officials there claimed today.

Nugraha Besoes, the secretary general of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI), said that they were expecting a final decision soon that will decide whether or not they proceed with their bid and they remained optimistic.

Nurdin Halid, the chairman of the PSSI, met with Agung Laksono, the country’s Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare, in the capital Jakarta last week to talk about the campaign and warned that unless the Government financially supported the bid it could not continue.

Besoes said: ”We’re waiting for the Government to make their decision whether they will back the bid.

“It involves so many Ministries and a lot of deep, internal discussions before we can get the guarantees we want, but we’re very optimistic they’ll get behind this.”

Indonesia, which compromises of more than 17,000 islands, is the world’s fourth most populous country with a population of 230 million.

But hosting the World Cup would represent the biggest project in the country’s history.

The PSSI estimate that the bidding process will cost approximately Rp 240 billion (£16 million), while upgrades could cost up to Rp 10 trillion (£1 billion).

Candidates must provide 12 stadiums with at least 40,000 seats for group matches, with one 80,000-capacity stadium for the opening match and final.

Indonesia has the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium with 88,000 seats, which was originally built for the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, and the PSSI has proposed renovating three stadiums and building 10 new venues before 2015.

Besoes said: ”The bid is still going on, we are still very serious about having the World Cup finals here.”

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