Although COVID-19 Cases Increase, PT LIB Has Not Thought Of Moving Liga 1 From Bali

PSM vs Persib match postponed (Twitter.com/@persib)

JAKARTA - PT Liga Indonesia Baru (LIB) said the fourth series of Liga 1 2022 will still be held in Bali. The organizers are still not going to move the venue of the match even though the current case of COVID-19 is increasing.

This was revealed by the Director of Operations of PT LIB, Sudjarno during an online press conference, Wednesday, February 2. On that occasion he chose to focus on breaking the chain of distribution rather than moving locations in the middle of the competition.

"It's the same with how we break the chain in the club environment. We don't want to contribute to the spread of COVID-19. There has been no thought of moving (competition) from Bali," said Sujarno.

Based on data from the Bali Province COVID-19 Handling Task Force, the number of daily positive cases as of Tuesday, February 2 was 715 cases. This number is relatively high compared to other provinces.

At the same time, the number of players and team officials in League 1 who were confirmed positive for COVID-19 also continued to grow. Most recently, the match between PSM Makassar and Persib Bandung, which was originally held on Wednesday, February 2 at 19.15 WIB, had to be postponed.

The postponement was carried out based on the results of an emergency meeting held by PT LIB after finding the results of the PCR test carried out by Persib, leaving only 13 players ready to compete. This number is clearly below the specified standard, which is a minimum of 14 players.

In addition to the Persib vs PSM match, the Persipura vs Madura United match was also postponed because the players were exposed to COVID-19. Although two matches have been postponed, PT LIB has confirmed that it will not delay the fourth series, let alone stop the competition. The option used is to evaluate per game.

"We are talking match to match. We are running a full competition so is there a postponement of the fourth series? We evaluate match by match first," said Sujarno during a virtual press conference.

"We are not in that direction (stopping the competition). We want to break the chain of distribution. The method is to tighten it, not semi-bubble anymore but full bubble. Until now we have no plan to stop it," he said.