Steven Danis
Football Tribe Indonesia
There was good news for Indonesia in the latest FIFA Council Meeting in Shanghai, when Gianni Infantino announced that Indonesia will host the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup .
The decision was announced along with other relevant dates on the FIFA calendar, including announcing Peru as the U-17 World Cup’s host, Russia as the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup and China as the host of the first edition of the new FIFA Club World Cup in 2021.
Following the success story as the 2018 Asian Games host, Indonesia also hosted several Asian and Southeast Asian football tournaments in the last year. The chance to host FIFA U-20 World Cup 2021 is a big step not only for the football’s atmosphere but also for the country itself.
A World Cup is World Cup, whatever the sport is and whatever the category is. A lot of preparation is going to be needed, along with a lot of attention from every stakeholder. Everybody from the President to the common people, even those who even don’t follow football, will be involved in this situation. 2021 isn’t a long time away.
I am concerned with three aspects in questioning our readiness as the host in 2021 – our youth development, our overall infrastructure, and our fans.
Okay, let’s see how we are doing in the first aspect so far. The PSSI have already held the U-16 and U-18 Liga 1 for years and already launch the U-20 Liga 1 this season, but this isn’t good enough for youth development across the nation Why do I say that? Because the contestants are always changing every year. The teams who compete in that league must also be Liga 1 contestants. The question is, if the youth teams are playing well, why are the senior teams struggling? Is the youth development stopping there?
On the other hand, not every club has its own academy, for example last year Perseru Serui, a Papuan-based club who this year relocated in Lampung, played some match in Malang and unfortunately, their youth team for the PSSI Youth Leagues are players from Malang-based soccer schools. Sadly the federation itself only concerned with the U-16 and U-19 level while other organizations such as AQUA Danone develop the U-12 competitions and two newspaper companies, TopSkor and Kompas Gramedia, had their own U-14 competitions.
I hope PSSI can manage and organize these competitions well to suit all clubs in Indonesia. They need to ask, even force, clubs to take youth development as a serious issue. Because I believe that a good national team is born from a good league. Additionally, the PSSI is running a “Garuda Select” program, sending a squad from the best players to live, play and compete overseas. This year the squad is will play in England and Italy after it’s launch last year was a success, with boys like twins Bagas Kaffa and Bagus Kahfi or Supriyadi being the main attraction.
So let’s move to the last two aspects that all stakeholders need to improve before the World Cup campaign begin. Officially there are ten stadia which will be used as the main ground for the tournament. First and important, all the stadiums need to improve with some renovations before the opening match is held.
But not only the main stadia, Indonesia still lacks many FIFA-standard football training grounds, which is another aspect that needs to be improved by the PSSI and the local governments. They need training grounds that are not only comfortable for the players but also for the media and fans. The training grounds must easy to access, but at the same time not disturb the team’s concentration too much.
The urgency to build more FIFA-standard football training grounds is back, and the sad fact is that many Indonesian clubs don’t have proper grounds to train on. Sometimes they even rent futsal places or communal football fields.
The infrastructure issue is not only limited to football. We still need a great management of the hospitality. If I see the success of Asian Games 2018 I think the U-20 World Cup 2021 isn’t a big deal to take. I believe that our human resources are enough and capable to handle it. From the standardized hotels, the traffic management and all the volunteers who help the fans, the staff and the players are up for the job.
And talking people, one of the biggest and the most important things for the tournament is it’s the supporters. Indonesia is well known as one of the countries who have fanatic football supporters. However, sometimes that can devolve into madness – ranging from vandalism to acts of murder. Yes, in the name of hooliganism, Indonesian supporters may one of the worst, even more than what happened in several European countries or in Latin American traditions.
We still don’t know which countries will go to the final phase of the tournament but the rivalry against other South East Asian nations like Malaysia must be handled well, not only for certain countries but all of the contestants of the U-20 World Cup. So I hope the supporters learn day by day to be better in their actions.