JAKARTA - Apparel DRX Wear has begun to launch a surprising maneuver in Liga 1 2024/2025. They became the official appearance of six of Indonesia's highest-level league clubs.
The six clubs in question are Dewa United, PSIS Semarang, Madura United, Persik Kediri, PSS Sleman, and PSM Makassar.
The appearance of DRX suddenly two seasons ago. They immediately broke into Liga 1 in the 2023/2024 season by sponsoring Dewa United's official jersey.
This season, they were able to control a third of League 1 clubs. That's of course raises questions.
As newcomers, DRX's quick steps have led to a lot of speculation. You see, their brand is not yet known to the public.
When League 1 clubs started switching to local appars, they started working with well-known local brands.
This season, Specs - as a brand that has long been known in the country - still dominates by cooperating with Bali United, Borneo FC, and North Maluku United.
The rest, the club chooses a self-produced brand. Call it Persib (Sportama), Arema (Etams), Persebaya (AZA), Barito Putera (H), Persita Tangerang (1953), Semen Padang (SPFC Apparel), PSBS Biak (Kusumasa), and Persis Solo.
DRX's movement is clearly an anomaly. If you want to compare it, Champions will become similar appearances.
However, Juaraga only sponsored Persija Jakarta from the 2020/2021 season to the present.
Mister T's alleged involvement, which has recently been widely discussed as a suspected online gambling controller (judol) behind DRX Wear, has also surfaced. Because of this, DRX Wear maneuvers very boldly.
Mister T's Involvement
In the investigation of Tempo Magazine, the initials T are strongly suspected of having been involved in Indonesian sports.
Mister T's mystery as a suspected online gambling controlling actor has come to light.
The figure of Mister T is associated with the name Tommy Hermawan Lo. The initials surfaced after being echoed by the Head of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency, Benny Rhamdani.
When referring to Tempo's report, Mister T is not a new person in Indonesian sports. Tommy Hermawan Lo's name filled the seats of the General Treasurer of the Indonesian Olympic Committee (NOC Indonesia) in the last two periods (2019-2023 and 2023-2027).
In fact, Tommy served as commissioner and holder of 99 shares of PT Dewa Utd Indonesia, which oversees League 1 club, Indonesian Basketball League basketball club, and Dewa United esport.
Linking Tommy Hermawan Lo with Mister T cannot be separated from his background who is the second son of the JHL Group business group, Jerry Hermawan Lo.
JHL Group has a business engaged in hospitality, property, mining, automotive, and media.
However, Jerry is known to have a casino in Cambodia, to be precise Sihanoukville, named Kompong Dewa Casino.
This was revealed through the Youtube video of Alvin Lim's lawyer interview two years ago which was recently busy on X's account and became a topic of conversation.
"I asked him (Jerry Hermawan Lo), is it true, Mr. bookie? Don't let us outside talk about that but when we meet the person, we don't talk."
"He replied, 'In the past, yes. Now it's not. Now I should be given an award'."
"He continued again, 'I have a gambling name as Kompong Dewa in Cambodia in collaboration with the Government there and get permission. I created jobs for Indonesia. There are many Indonesian migrant workers who are sales, marketing, casino employees. My customers are mainland Chinese, not Indonesians'," said Alvin Lim.
Octopus Mister T in this sport is also thought to have spread to the apparel, to be precise, jersey. An apparel named DRX Wear, which just emerged, immediately kicked off.
DRX Wear first became Dewa United FC's sponsor, a club owned by Tommy. Just as long as he was corn, DRX Wear immediately controlled several League 1 clubs as the main appearance.
The allegation of Tommy's involvement behind DRX Wear cannot be separated from the closeness of one of the high-ranking apparel officials, namely Kash Topan, who served as Chief Marketing Officer. In Kash's personal Instagram account, several times he uploaded photos with Tommy.
DRX's feud with Riors
The presence of DRX Wear makes local inter-apparel wars occur. The collaboration between DRX and PSIS Semarang this season made Riors, the previous approach, furious.
The reason is, Riors has been working with PSIS Semarang since Liga 2 2017. Suddenly in Liga 1 2024/2025, Laskar Mahesa Jenar cut off togetherness with Riors.
PSIS Semarang's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Yoyok Sukawi, said implicitly that DRX Wear was able to join forces to strengthen the club's finances.
"We apologize to Riors for having to resign from the cooperation agreement earlier. We are very sorry," said Yoyok Sukawi, in May 2024.
"However, we have to do it to strengthen the club's finances. We hope that Riors will continue to grow and be more successful in the future," said Yoyok again.
Riors has yet to provide a statement regarding the resignation of PSIS from the cooperation agreement this season. However, in their official account upload on X, Riors quipped the cooperation between DRX Wear and PSIS Semarang.
"Money can buy your pride, not our class (Money can't buy your pride, not our class)," said Riors' upload on the @riors_id account.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
