Bobotoh Jakarta

Fanatical supporters in soccer are no longer a new phenomenon and it is common in almost every country whose nation deems soccer/soccer match as a religion (not literally, in a different meaning-ed).

British people are notorious for the hooligans who are very disturbing and makes people restless enough in every match between world-class countries, or even European countries. Similarly, the World Cup or European Championship. Concerns arising from the match organizers is that if the British team’s performance is disappointing or far lower than expectations of these hooligans,there will be unrest which results in quite a lot of material loss.

Although many may have not reported (probably because I am in Indonesia and the news about it has been more selected for inclusion into the virtual world. Well, I'm not sure,-ed). But the highest institution of British football is the FA that will impose strong sanctions against the club, or FIFA will impose sanctions to the country's national team whose supporters make restless situation.

But of course in every match, for the European League, the European Championship and World Championship, the match organizing committee always sets up a better and better security. This is done by the committees to prevent undesirable things from happening.

And abroad, if there is a special event such as football club’s anniversary parties for example, there will no chaos by the supporters by breaking into the stadium just to watch the match and support their favorite teams. And according to information from one of my friends who live in England, that the British security forces always applies super strict security measures at soccer games, especially the soccer games where there is a teams playing against its biggest enemy such as MU vs Liverpool whether the game is in Liverpool or in Manchester . In fact, the security forces and police will take very firm actions toward the supporters who act improperly.

And this is exemplary by the soccer games organizers in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia (not mocking, but this is a reality and it happened -ed) a lot of ways done to support people’s favorite soccer teams. I really admire Persib Bandung. Not because I live in Bandung, but because I am very pleased with Persib Bandung team, I even was one witness who saw Persib Bandung won the Indonesian League Championship for the first time in 1995 that was the first Indonesian League, it used to be named the United League. And that was the first time I loved Persib whose players were really cool by relying only on all local players alias native Indonesians. Although there are now foreign players, I still love only Persib and it is not replacable.

Back to the topic. Sometimes this behavior is supported by the organizing committee and sometimes by the team official. Although there is no real proof this, sometimes I do an analysis and find out that supporters do not do these things without the intimidation or provocation from others. And usually, I think, provocation must be done by people that supporters have known and he was in a group of supporters who can be ordered by the official club or anything like that but I can not judge directly who it is. That's only an analysis and estimate.

Some time ago at the second leg of Indonesian Super League 2009/2010 between Persib and one of the clubs in East Java (of course I forgot the name of the team-ed). Persib in the first leg tourned out to slaughter that club in Bandung. And in order to provide a great spirit to supporters’ favorite team and provide mental pressure because that stadium was overcrowded with home team supporters in those games, the organizers offer a discount on admission to the prospective spectators. And in a business context, giving discounts to customers is common and it is a normal thing done by the organizing committee in order to attract buyers/customers in this case is a large number of soccer spectators. But surely, it was something really horrible to see when there was too little borderline separating fanatical supporters of Persib Bandung and the opposing team’s supporters.

Many promises are made by the soccer fans club saying that spectators/supporters will be disciplined but that's no guarantee. Lots of events happened unexpectedly and it was beyond the power of the organizers like throwing a bottle of mineral water to the opposing team or a more severe one, even throwing stones. In fact, Persib team was a little intimidated by the spectators who watched the game right outside the pitch line and maybe if the spectators were carried away, they could have just entered the pitch. (this is of course the worst scenario-ed)

And on Sunday last week, on March 14, 2010 Persib team that was celebrating its 77th anniversary invited Arema Indonesia at Si Jalak Harupat Stadium, Soreang, Bandung Regency.

This anniversary occassion caused the spectators of the game burst into the stadium and caused over-capacity. Finally, it made the supporters that should have been in a special tribune forced into the stadium area that should be sterile from the spectators. As a result, the news I read in the newspapers yesterday morning reported that the overcrowding spectators had made so many people fainted and some spectators even fell because of pushing each other like crazy.

The stadium was overcrowded because at that match the spectators broke in the entrance and finally a lot of spectators entered Si Jalak Harupat Stadium without buying tickets merely to support their favorite team Persib play in its 77th anniversary occassion. That incident was not the first time, several years ago at Persib’s anniversary celebration as well, Siliwangi Stadium could not accommodate a large number of spectators, and finally they burst into the pitch and eventually many spectators watching the game at the pitch lane, a few centimeters from the to be exact rather than just a few centimeters from the soccer pitch’s sideline. And it looked like watcing a soccer match in the neighborhood at the annual event of commemorating Indonesia's Independence in August.

Even though there were not many undesirable incidents, this is a bad precedent for Indonesian soccer and of course a bad precedent for organizing committees. Surely, the above incidents are bad marks in Indonesian soccer games’ report.

And my questions are; At the soccer games, do the organizing committees cooperate with the police and security force to prevent bad incidents from happening? What if the security forces take rather repressive measures toward supporters breaking in the enterence of the stadium because they want to watch the game but they do not have the tickets for fear that they will hurt the spectators?

And by allowing illegal spectators to enter/breaking in the entrance without buying tickets, we can see the security forces and the organizing committees are not rigorous enough, that is absolutely bad incident and sometimes I am ashamed of it.>>>

There are still many other incidents which occurred due to the lack of rigorous control of the organizing committees and the security forces. These may be some of bad incidents occur in Indonesian soccer matches. And there should also be a consideration whether Indonesia is prepared for holding an international soccer tournament in very grand in style such as World Cup as highly endorsed by the PSSI [translator’s note: Indonesian Football Federation] few dozen years later? Given the Asian level football tournament only, there were still spectators who successfully went through fence between spectators and the pitch and went into the soccer pitch at the Asian Cup some time ago.

Maybe if we plan to hold an international tournament, one of the most important thing must be changed is the way of thinking and behavior of spectators of the soccer tournament, in Indonesia of course.


by Hotman Christian