The 2021/22 Liga 3 Indonesia season was riddled with many refereeing issues, questionable decisions, and suspected biases. One team, in particular, became notorious in the eyes of Indonesian football fans as they benefited the most from the many controversial refereeing decisions in this season’s Liga 3 – Farmel FC.
Once again, Tangerang-based Farmel FC made their way into the headlines on Sunday for all the wrong reasons, as they opened their Liga 3 round of 16 campaign in their usual controversial fashion. Local rivals Persikota Tangerang were the victims this time out, with the Bayi Ajaib being subjected to a number of questionable decisions from the referee that heavily favored Farmel.
First off, Farmel were awarded a penalty in the 27th minute after the referee had adjudged a Persikota player had fouled a Farmel attacker in the box – despite replays showing that the contact made on the Farmel player wasn’t one that’s considered foul-worthy. The referee also punished Persikota with a number of offside calls despite the Bayi Ajaib‘s players being onside. Eventually, all of Persikota’s pent-up frustrations reached a critical point in the 60th minute, after Farmel were awarded with a free-kick even though they had committed a foul beforehand – which meant that it was Persikota who were supposed to be awarded the set-piece.
This led to a brief scuffle between the Farmel players with everyone from the Persikota camp that led to security forces being deployed to defuse the situation before the Bayi Ajaib refused to continue the match even further and walked off the Gelora Delta pitch. The scoreline at that point was 3-0 to Farmel, a scoreline that was made final after Persikota adamantly refused any attempts to continue the match in protest towards the referee’s biased decisions.
Actress Prilly Latuconsina, the owner of Persikota, voiced her disappointment towards the match on her Instagram story.
“There are a lot of strange occurrences in this match. Onside situations being called as offside, fouls being ignored while non-fouls are considered as fouls, and cards were awarded in situations that don’t warrant any,” Prilly wrote, “I’m saddened and disappointed by the state of Indonesian football. I hope incidents like these won’t happen ever again, it’s very unfortunate that these incidents must happen.”
Tagging the Football Federation of Indonesia (PSSI) on her grievances, Kukira Kau Rumah star Prilly sarcastically thanked Farmel for the “entertainment” that they had provided throughout the match, before encouraging her Persikota players to move onto the next match and not let the Farmel incident weigh them down too much.
And Persikota were not the only victims of Farmel’s “dark arts.”
Earlier on February, both Bandung United and PSBL Langsa, who were drawn into the same group as Farmel in the Liga 3’s round of 32, also were on the receiving end of several questionable decisions from the referee.
In a clip that went viral worldwide, Bandung United players sarcastically clapped the referee and the Farmel players after four of Bandung United’s players were controversially sent off before the Maung Bandung Muda went on to allow Farmel to score an easy goal in protest. Bandung United, who were the reserve team of Liga 1 side Persib Bandung, went on to lose 3-0.
PSBL Langsa, who lost 4-1 to Farmel, were subjected to a number of controversial decisions from the referee that favored their opponents from Tangerang, leading to the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam-based club’s head coach, Muhammad Azhar, to write on his Instagram, “Thank you for making the youth of Aceh distrust Indonesian football.”
And who could forget the NZR Sumbersari fiasco earlier in the season, in which Malang-based NZR Sumbersari were controversially punished with a questionable penalty that allowed Farmel to steal the Elang Selatan‘s three points from right underneath their noses in the last minute of their match? The decision enraged the NZR Sumbersari camp so much that they immediately went after the referee and his assistants once the full-time whistle was blown.
These controversies inevitably raised suspicions regarding Farmel, who were previously a fledgling football academy before deciding to field a senior team for the Liga 3. Many accused Farmel of bribing their way through the Liga 3, while others are suspecting that the Farmel higher-ups are part of a footballing mafia group that seeks to control the Liga 3 in their favor. A few even point out that Farmel’s president is also holding an important position within the PSSI’s provincial associations, and a favorable result for Farmel in the Liga 3 would enable him to go up the ranks quite easily.
Within the space of a few months, Farmel went from being relative unknowns to Indonesia’s most hated football team, public enemy number one, so to speak. Their presence is unwanted in Indonesian football as a whole and their Instagram account was riddled with jeering and mockery from angry football fans, so much so that the club had to limit the number of comments flooding into their posts.
With eight tickets to the upcoming Liga 2 campaign up for grabs, it’s safe to say that should Farmel get their hands on one of these tickets, they will be met with the resistance of not only the supporters of the teams who were wronged by them but also everyone within the Indonesian football fraternity. An investigation must be done – are Farmel’s luck with the referees’ decision purely coincidental, a product of poor refereeing? Or are they really manipulating their way into the Liga 2 at the expense of others? Only time will tell.