Liga 1 2025/2026 Scheme, PSSI Implements 30 Percent Of Foreign Referees

JAKARTA - Liga 1 2025/2026 is planned to start rolling in August 2025. For this new season's competition, the General Chairperson (Ketum) of PSSI, Erick Thohir, explained that the federation would implement a 30 percent foreign referee use scheme.

This news was conveyed by Erick Thohir after meeting with the Deputy Chairman of the PSSI Referee Committee, Yoshimi Ogawa, in Osaka, Japan. Through his official Instagram account, Erick Thohir revealed the results of the meeting.

He said that this step was taken as part of a comprehensive reform in the national refereeing system. In addition to the referee's question, Erick Thohir will also implement a digital system for the aspect of assessment, training, and appointment of referees.

"We will make changes in the team on alert and will start running the digital referee's assessment, training monitoring and apppointment system."

"We also encourage the use of foreign and Indonesian referees with a ratio of 30 percent of foreign referees and 70 percent of Indonesian wasil," wrote Erick Thohir, quoted on Thursday, June 12, 2025.

Previously, Yoshimi Ogawa had expressed concern about the decline in the level of trust of a number of League 1 clubs against local referees.

On the other hand, Ogawa also highlighted that the involvement of foreign coaches could indeed be a solution. However, it is only temporary and should only be a lesson, not make competition dependent.

So far, there have been several foreign referees who had led Liga 1, namely Adham Makhamed from Jordan, Nazmi Nasaruddin from Malaysia, and Ko Hyung-jin from South Korea.

All these foreign referees lead a number of matches that run without meaningful complaints.