A football game like the World Cup qualifying match in Jakarta on Thursday night between Malaysia and Indonesia should have been a spectacle, instead it was marred by unruly Indonesian fans who allegedly pelted Malaysian supporters with metal objects and water bottles.
It should not have come as a surprise though; reportedly, Indonesia’s football hooliganism is well known.
The uncalled for remark by a taxi company founder from Malaysia about Gojek riders and Indonesia just days earlier could not have triggered it, although comments over social media alluded to it.
Indonesia’s football violence is like an affliction which has cast a shadow over the game for decades. A former Indonesian sports journalist had once likened its football scene to a “graveyard”. The fans’ refrain of “until death” (sampai mati) is common among football clubs. Indeed, since 1994, 74 fans have been killed in football-related violence.
Really, Indonesian authorities, in particular its All-Indonesian Football Association, the football governing body, or PSSI, must up its game and address the problem. More than lip service is required to quell the violence.
A report on the ABC.net portal in February had told of how Jakarta’s football fans had looked like the militia, with “training in the jungle for deployment to a far-flung conflict zone”.
Animosity between the teams, it was said, was so intense that Indonesian Premier League players were regularly transported to games in “armoured personnel carriers”.
True, football and hooliganism are “near synonymous the world over”, but that does not mean it should be tolerated. For instance, violence at football matches has been a feature of English life since the start of the first leagues in the 19th century.
But since the 1980s, the United Kingdom government introduced laws to give police and courts more powers to crack down on football-related violence, including stricter rules on alcohol consumption and a zero-tolerance approach to racial abuse.
In 1983, 150 England fans were arrested in Luxembourg following a riot, while Tottenham Hotspurs were fined by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) after violence in Rotterdam left 30 fans in hospital with stab wounds and other injuries, as reported by The Guardian.
For the next five years, all English clubs were barred from European tournaments, and the British government and sporting bodies dramatically stepped up efforts to curb football violence.
Banning orders proved to be a key weapon in the battle against hooliganism. Introduced in a 1989 act and strengthened in 2000, the orders can be used to bar troublemakers not only from stadiums, but also from public transport and town centres on match days and from travelling abroad for international fixtures.
If PSSI and league organisers are serious about checking violence, drastic measures should be taken, either banning supporters for life or taking legal action.
As a last resort, the Asian Football Confederation and International Football Federation (Fifa) could step in. Ban the clubs, ban the supporters, close down the league entirely — whatever it takes to stop the violence.
Provocations, insults and violence have no place in sports. And so it should be in football, where respect and sportsmanship are paramount.
As is often said, “football is a beautiful game” — it would do well for fans to remember that.