Upset By League 3 Referees For Being Incompetent To Lead The Match, Chairman Of Indonesian Football Association: I'm Building Football That Had Stopped For Almost 2 Years With My Blood

PSSi Chairman Mochamad Iriawan (right) (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) General Chair Mochamad Iriawan strongly rebuked the referees who were in charge of leading the matches in the last 16 of the Indonesian League 3.

Quoted from Antara, Wednesday, March 9, Iriawan admitted that he was disturbed by the wrong decisions of the judges.

One of them happened when Farmel FC beat Persikota 3-0, last Sunday. At that time, the referee Untung Santoso, the first assistant referee Hidayat and the second assistant referee Yulianto made several controversial policies such as stating "offside" a situation that should be "onside" and giving a penalty even though there was no violation in the forbidden box.

"I'm disturbed by the controversial decisions made by the referees on duty. Maybe the option is for me to look for other referees from abroad. I don't want to be labeled as having a game in PSSI. Can you change it? I'm bleeding and ups and downs to build football which had stopped for almost two years," Iriawan told the referees.

The man who is familiarly called Iwan Bule also asked the League 3 referees to improve their performance.

Iriawan does not want a similar situation to repeat itself. The retired police officer with the last rank of Commissioner General also strongly demanded that referees who feel unable to work immediately leave the world of football.

"I'm sorry I spoke loudly. Can you change or not? Otherwise, you don't have to be a referee, earn a living and do other jobs. Take Thoriq Alkatiri as an example. He can be an example and role model for you," said Iriawan.

The referees were also instructed to review the recording of Farmel FC against Persikota.

"Please look at the video footage of Farmel and Persikota. Once again, you are watched by hundreds of millions of pairs of eyes who love Indonesian football. The good ones are to improve. In the future, there will be no mistake. What happened to the referees regarding controversial decisions had an impact not only to you, but to us, PSSI," said Iriawan.

PSSI Secretary General Yunus Nusi added, the poor performance of the referees must be ended immediately because, next, there will be many tournaments under PSSI that are rolling.

"Later there will be the U-17, U-15 and U-13 Soeratin Cups. Don't let you ruin the children's dreams with wrong decisions. Hopefully there are still good intentions from friends to lead the match well and with enthusiasm and good will in the next Liga 3 matches," said Yunus.

The last 16 of Liga 3 will be held again this Wednesday.