By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – Under pressure from FIFA to resolve their differences or face severe sanctions, Indonesia’s two rival football associations have struck an 11th hour agreement to merge, ending a long and bitter feud that could have resulted in the country being suspended from international competition.
The summit resulted in the dissolution of the KSPI, and an agreement to reconcile the country’s two separate championships next year. The breakaway association’s leader, La Nyalla Mattalitti, is the new deputy chairman of the PSSI, now led by Djohar Arifin Husein.
Such was the sensitivity of the occasion that it was reported some 500 police officers were drafted in to safeguard delegates, some of whom reportedly got involved in scuffles and jostling.
Six of the 11 current PSSI committee members walked out of the Jakarta meeting in protest but Husein declared: “”This is a major leap for the future of our football. Now there is no more dualism.”
The feud had left Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, with two leagues, two national teams, a growing scandal of players not being paid – and on a collision course with FIFA. Indonesia are due to play Saudi Arabia next Saturday and Husein added: “We have one league, one national team, one football federation and we can avoid FIFA’s sanction.”
FIFA had repeatedly threatened to suspend Indonesia and the international players union FIFPro last week issued a damning indictment of the dysfunctional nature of Indonesian football, saying nothing had changed since the tragic death in December of Paraguayan player Diego Mendieta.
Poor management, unpaid wages and corruption allegations hit a new low when Mendieta, who was married with two children and was owed four months’ wages by the Persis Solo club and could not afford medical treatment, died from a viral infection.
The majority of the 100 votes at Sunday’s meeting agreed to unite the two leagues – the Indonesian Super League (ISL) and Indonesian Premier League (IPL), by 2014 with 18 clubs from ISL and four clubs from IPL.
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