Football Anti-Mafia Task Force: Club Involved In Fixing Scores Spending IDR 800 Million, Now In League 1

Head of the Anti-Mafia Ball Task Force, Inspector General Asep Edi Suheri at the National Police Headquarters (Photo: Rizky AP/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Anti-Mafia Ball Task Force said that the club involved in match fixing had spent Rp800 million to be promoted to Liga 1 Indonesia. The bribe occurred during the 2018 season.

"Until now, approximately Rp. 800 million has been recorded, if the confession may be more than Rp. 1 billion. But those recorded according to the facts we got are Rp. 800 million," said Head of the Anti-Mafia Ball Task Force, Inspector General Asep Edi Suheri to reporters, Thursday, October 12.

With the hundreds of millions of money, match-fixing action ensued. However, it was stopped during the 2020-2021 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic which ended in the competition.

After the competition rolled back, the club bribed the referees again. Thus, almost all matches that are played always win.

"In some matches, club Y won. So every game of club Y won. Except 1, and went up to League 1. If I'm not mistaken, it was 1 who lost. But from 7, it won everyone," he said.

Currently, the club involved in the match-fixing is said to be still in Liga 1. The deepening continues to be carried out in order to reveal the mastermind behind it.

"Currently (the club is involved in match-fixing) in 2023, yes, it is still in Liga 1," said Asep.

So far, the Anti-Mafia Ball Task Force has named 8 suspects. Two of them are VW and DA which were announced today.

The two suspects have different roles. VW is the former owner of one of the football clubs. In the match-fixing case, he lobbied the referee to get involved in fixing the score.

"VW is also the one who plays an active role as a lobbyist and VW itself lobbys and asks referees to win club Y by giving an appointment to give something," he said.

As for the suspect DR, he is one of the administrators of club Y. He also acts as a funder.

"DR plays a role as a funder whose funds will be handed over to VW to organize and win the match for club Y," said Asep.

Meanwhile, the other 6 suspects, including the US, have now been announced some time ago. Four of the suspects are referees.

The referees had the initials M as the middle referee, E assistant referee 1, R as assistant referee 2, and A as the reserve referee.

Meanwhile, the other two suspects, namely K and A. They are LO and delivery couriers.