The Surabaya Louvre Takes Legal Steps Regarding Allegations Of Fixing The Score

Indonesian basketball club, Louvre Surabaya. (Photo: Instagram/@taamlouvre)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian basketball club, Louvre Surabaya, took legal steps after being frozen by the Indonesian Basketball Association (Perbasi). This is the aftermath of accusations of match-fixing at the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) event.

The Louvre management did not remain silent. They took legal steps by making a report to the Jakarta Metro Jaya Police, Tuesday, February 28.

"Our arrival is to make a report to the police regarding violations of alleged criminal acts of article 27 paragraph 3 concerning defamation, articles 14 and 15 of Law No. 1 1946 regarding hoax news," said Louvre Surabaya attorney Rinto Wardana, as quoted from Antara.

As is known, Perbasi has issued a letter of decision to freeze the Louvre Surabaya on suspicion of a violation in the form of match-fixing at the 2023 ABL event.

In the ABL event, the Surabaya Louvre only won once in the 14 matches it had played. In some matches, the Louvre lost very badly like 97-35 against Saigon heat, 147-89 against Singapore Slingers, 93-59 against Blackbeams Macau.

Perbasi conducted an investigation into the alleged match-fixing. The Louvre was frozen during the investigation.

As a result, the Surabaya Louvre is temporarily prohibited from playing in any basketball competition, both nationally and internationally, which of course harms the Surabaya team.

Rinto explained that the issue of arranging the Surabaya Louvre score just surfaced and came from a source that could not be validated and verified. The issue of setting the Louvre score rolled through an electronic mail which later became a chain message on the WhatsApp application.

"In the email there were allegations of match-fixing by the Louvre. Meanwhile, it cannot be verified and clarified. We suspect this email contains fake news and cannot be accounted for. We regret that this news was used as the basis for freezing the Louvre by Perbasi," said Rinto.

Louvre reported an individual named Alan who spread false news related to the issue of match-fixing via electronic mail. "The reported party is the name in the email Alan. We will make another reported after the investigation," said Rinto.

Rinto also said that the Louvre deeply regretted that the action of Perbasi which had frozen the Surabaya basketball team was only based on issues or allegations. The investigation was only carried out by Perbasi and had not yet received results, but the Surabaya Louvre had already been frozen immediately.

Previously, the Louvre Surabaya had also met with Perbasi some time ago. Perbasi asked for clarification and data from the Louvre to refute the allegations, but Rinto said his client did not prepare supporting documents to refute the allegations because it was not informed beforehand that the meeting would discuss the clarification.

After the first meeting, Perbasi and Louvre agreed to hold a second meeting to clarify the allegations of match-fixing accompanied by supporting evidence. However, before the second meeting, Perbasi had issued a decree to freeze the Surabaya Louvre on suspicion of match-fixing.