'Still a grim look of Indonesian sports ahead'
'Still a grim look of Indonesian sports ahead'
Musthofid
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
With economic and political condition expected to have yet to
return normal in the near future and the absence of government's
sporting goodwill, Indonesian sports is facing a grim prospect
ahead, according to senior athletes.
KONI, the country's sports governing body, has traditionally
turned to business circles for financial support, especially when
it comes to preparing a delegation for a multisports showcases
such as SEA Games, Asian Games and Olympics.
However, raising fund has become a hard task to do since
monetary crisis hit Indonesian in 1997. And the same issue has
again set in now that the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea,
is approaching.
The hardship in accruing funds for training workout and the
dispatch of athletes to a competition, be it at home or abroad,
proved to be an easily-founded excuse by an Indonesian sporting
contingent (read: KONI) for its dismal performance, such as a
case at the 2001 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.
The Kuala Lumpur Games left Indonesia, once a dominant force
in the Southeast region, in a mediocre third place for the second
time in a back-to-back season after 1999 in Brunei.
While it is still debatable whether KONI should be held
responsible for the poor showing, straining financial problem is
expected to continue overshadow national sports for years to
come.
Such a condition lent its hands to the ongoing political and
notably economic look of the Indonesia, which is still far from
recovery.
"Now businessmen have walked away. What I want to point out is
that raising fund is difficult today and that hard effort is
needed to find another source of money. It takes time," Utut
Adianto, the country's number one chess Grand Master, told The
Jakarta Post on Saturday.
To add to the woes, the government is virtually idle about the
financial plague.
"It's deplorable that the government doesn't have its goodwill
on sports," sports columnist Eddi Elison said in a separate
interview.
Eddie recalled Garuda Emas (Golden Eagle) program which was
mooted by KONI in early 1990. The program, which aims at spurring
a specifically-designated province to develop its own potential
sport, has not worked.
"This is because the government has not given its full support
to the campaign. There should have been a nationwide movement to
make the campaign a success," Eddi, who is an official of the
Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI), said.
"Why it did so? Because sports is not a priority in this
country. The financial aid the government has so far realized is
only an instant package of rescue.
"What demanding is that the government allocate a sum of money
apportioned from the state budget for the development of sports,"
he said.
The poor showing at the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games could as well
be looked to be the evil fruit Indonesia had to reap for its lack
of effort in regeneration.
Eddi put it down to the absence of commitment in the part of
the officials of the sport organizations.
"Only a few have dedication. The rest have joined their
respective organizations only for the sake of their interest.
This kind of guys is poisonous to sports development," he said.
Ade Rai, a country's leading bodybuilder, attributed it to
unqualified human resources recruited into the organizations.
"How can an official in charge of scouting affairs, for an
instance, be justifiably eligible for his job if he in fact
doesn't know how to carry on with it," Ade said.
He said that the officials of the majority of the sports
organizations would tend to blindly set eyes on tournaments at
hands without giving attention on regeneration.
With such a condition expected not to improve in the near
future the three are pessimistic about the prospect of the
Indonesian sports in 2002.
Ade suggested that the attention had to be focused on the Doha
2006 Asian Games instead of the 2002 Asiad while Utut predicted
Indonesia would probably be braced for an unprecedented fourth
finisher at the Hanoi 2003 SEA Games.