Indonesian League 1 Continues In Bali, PSSI Secretary General: COVID-19 Positive Players Are Recovering Fast

JAKARTA - PSSI and the New Indonesia League (LIB) will continue the Indonesian League 1 on the island of Bali. The competition was continued with some consideration despite the spike in COVID-19 cases infecting players and officials.

The decision comes after football's parent and league operators held an emergency meeting on Friday, February 4.

The meeting was attended by PSSI General Chair Mochamad Iriawan, Deputy Iwan Budianto, Secretary General Yunus Nusi, PT LIB President Director Ahmad Hadian Lukita, PT LIB Operations Director Sudjarno, Exco Haruna Sumitro, and PSSI Technical Director Indra Sjafri.

"After we held a meeting via virtual zoom, it was finally agreed that League 1 would continue on the island of Bali with various considerations," said Yunus Nusi as quoted from the PSSI website.

These considerations include the schedules of Liga 1, FIFA, AFC, and AFF, agreements with broadcasters, player contracts, and others. In addition, PSSI and LIB also saw the speed of recovery of infected players.

According to PSSI's records, there were at least 100 players plus officials who were exposed to COVID-19 during the Bali series. However, the cure rate is also relatively high reaching 70 percent in a span of 4-5 days.

“The rest are currently recovering. I think the players have high antibodies and stamina. So even though he got COVID-19, it didn't take long for him to recover and he was finally declared cured," Yunus said.

The schedule for the Indonesian Liga 1 match during the pandemic has been regulated in the regulation in paragraph 6 article 52. In this paragraph it states that the presence of players who are positive for COVID-19 will not interfere with the scheduled match.

However, positive players forced PSSI and the organizers to postpone several matches because the club had less than 14 fit players. This is regulated in paragraph 7 article 52 of the regulation.