Menerkasu Misi Menteri BUMN Dan Menpora Maju Jadi Calon Pengjemana PSSI: Upaya Menghindari Kata Intervensi?

SOE Minister Erick Thohir (central) after registering as a candidate for PSSI 2023-2027 candidate. (Photo: Instagram @erickthohir)

JAKARTA - The decision of the Minister of SOEs Erick Thohir and Menpora Zainudin Amali to register as candidates for the General Chair and Deputy General Chair of PSSI attracted attention. The question arises, what is the mission behind the two of them advancing to take care of PSSI.

There is an assumption, this is an anticipatory step so that there are no more concerns if the government wants to "intervention" PSSI. So far, it has become a scourge for the government to want to interfere in football matters.

The reason is, FIFA strictly prohibits governments, or third parties, from intervening in federations in their countries. The sanctions are severe, namely freezing.

Former member of the PSSI Executive Committee, Tony Apriliani predicts, there will be encouragement from President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). Moreover, Jokowi is known to have a high concern for national football.

"In my opinion, Pak Joko Widodo wants PSSI to be better. It's easy to control. The president is so concerned (with national football) I see," he said when contacted by VOI, Friday, January 20.

Furthermore, said Tony, Erick and Amali most likely got a special task from the President to bring Indonesian football to a better direction. The task was entrusted to them because so far the President knew very well the performance of the two ministers.

However, the decision to deploy these two names is considered to be able to cause problems, especially with FIFA which prohibits intervening from the government against internal federations.

"But the method is not good. If the government fully fixes the federation. If FIFA is still the same as Sepp Blatter, it seems that he has been sanctioned," he said.

"There is already a shadow of the minister there, in the federation that takes policies that are certainly very confused later. But I don't know that these people have other strategies, I don't understand either," he added.

He continued, the two names are certainly very busy because they currently hold the position of minister. Therefore, if elected later, they should leave their current position to fully focus on PSSI.

"Why is it also permitted by the President. If I may, but I must resign if elected. That is fairer. So if elected, you should resign so that there is no potential FIFA sanction, and the conflict of interest is reduced," said Tony.

Currently, the KP is still in the process of verifying the names of the registrant candidates for general chairman, the candidate for deputy chairman, and the executive committee. Provisional candidates will appear after the process.

If any registrants are declared to have failed in the verification process, they will be given the opportunity to appeal from February 1-3. This appeal will be facilitated by the Electoral Appeal Committee (KBP).

After all the process is complete, the KP will announce a permanent candidate on February 6, following the Extraordinary Congress (KLB) for the election of chairman, vice chairman, and executive committee ten days later.