PSSI banned from staging soccer matches at Senayan
JAKARTA (JP): The All Indonesian Football Federation has been banned from staging international events in Senayan Main Stadium for six months, the Asian Soccer Confederation's (AFC) executive committee announced yesterday.
The ban was imposed after about 1,000 of the 120,000 people watching the 19th SEA Games men's soccer final between Indonesia and Thailand on Oct. 18 were involved in a riot.
The AFC also fined the association US$8,000 and decided to classify the stadium as "high risk".
The AFC's secretary-general, Peter Velappan, said the stadium would have to meet AFC safety requirements for the competing teams, officials and spectators.
"Only with such a guarantee can we decide to use the stadium as a venue in the future," he said, as quoted by Antara.
"The AFC will also assist the association to implement a program through the media to educate Indonesian soccer fans on proper behavior and suggest proper training for the security forces in handling the public."
Velappan also warned that the association would be suspended indefinitely from organizing tournaments if the organizers failed to pay allowances totaling $69,000 to the soccer tournament's officials within four weeks.
The ban was suggested by the confederation's discipline and fairplay commission which received the chaos report.
The Gelora Senayan Management Board director Yasidi Hambali told reporters yesterday that the chaos caused Rp 300 million (US$83,300) worth of damage.
"The figure is only our estimate and is not final. There is some light damage not included in our calculation," he said.
Yasidi said renovating Senayan Main Stadium would cost more than Rp 200 million. The rest was the cost of repairing and replacing other facilities, including broken glass, street lamps and street vases.
"The stadium losses includes broken fences and the burnt wooden benches," he said.
Yasidi said the Games consortium had promised to hand over Rp 1 billion "soon". The money is part of the Rp 3.5 billion rent still outstanding.
"We understand that the Games organizers and consortium have financial problems. We believe they will pay the rest but we don't have a dateline," he said.
The Senayan management received nearly Rp 3 billion assistance from the consortium in the form of the hockey field and the Panasonic sound system in the main stadium.
Separately yesterday, the National Sports Council's vice chairman, Arie Sudewo, said the organizers would write a book of guidelines on how to stage a multisports event, the evaluation of the 19th SEA Games and the 13th Asian Games preparation.
Arie said the book would also contain an evaluation of the Indonesian contingent's success in the Games.
"The evaluation will be used to improve the development of the Golden Garuda Project, through which Indonesia aims to reach world standard in many sports."
"There are 19 sports in the project, but we have predicted that we will only compete in 16 sports in the Asian Games."
The council only plans to send potential gold medalists to the Bangkok Games, in badminton, weightlifting, fencing, track and field, cycling, karate (only kata division), surfing, archery, gymnastic (only male gymnast Jonathan Mangiring Sianturi), swimming, taekwondo, tennis (only if world ranked 21st Yayuk Basuki plays), beach volleyball, boxing, judo and rowing.
Arie said the council did not yet know if the money to finance the Indonesian team for the Asian Games would come from the government or the private sector.
He also said that the Games consortium's financial audit should be finished by the middle of November, before the council reports it to the House of Representatives.
"It's our responsibility to the public who have paid for the sticker sales through their electricity, water and telephone bills," he said. (yan)