‘Not about football anymore’: Indonesia hit by hooligan violence
JAKARTA: From deadly fan beatings to teams being transported to matches in armoured personnel carriers, Indonesia is fast gaining a reputation as Asia’s most violent football nation.
Last weekend 23-year-old Persija Jakarta fan Haringga Sirla was clubbed to death by supporters of arch-rival Persib Bandung.
His murder once again highlighted the Southeast Asian country’s decadeslong struggle with hooliganism and led to the suspension of its top-flight Liga 1.
Sirla was the 70th Indonesian football fan to die in match-related violence since 1994, or about three deaths annually, according to figures from football watchdog Save Our Soccer.
His brutal murder, captured in shaky mobile phone footage and posted to Youtube, saw rival supporters using rocks, sticks and planks to beat the young man outside Bandung’s main stadium before a match.
Police said they have detained 16 people in connection with the killing.
It was the latest in a string of violent incidents between fans of the two clubs whose rivalry is so fierce that Persija supporters have previously been urged not to attend matches in Bandung, some 150 kilometres (93 miles) southeast of the capital. The Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) suspended play indefinitely following Sunday’s incident, vowing a crackdown.
But critics are quick to point out Indonesia has been here before-and little has changed. “The penalties aren’t enough,” Dex Glenniza, managing editor of website Pandit Football, told AFP. “Teams have not learned from the past.”
‘They’re just criminals’
While fan violence may not be as deadly as in some Latin American countries including Brazil, where football is akin to a religion, hooliganism has long been a feature of the Indonesian game, observers said.
Die-hard supporters of top teams have become notorious for unsavoury behaviour, with violent chants the norm at matches and hardcore fans blindly clinging to long-standing inter-club feuds. The security situation has become so dire that players from big-name rivals like Persib and Persija are sometimes transported to matches in armoured personnel carriers.
Many hooligans have little interest in what’s happening on the pitch and care more about squaring up against rivals, Glenniza said. “This is not about football anymore-they’re just criminals,” he told AFP.
Yana Umar, the director general of Viking Club Persib (VCP), a fan club with 100,000 members, described Persib as “a culture” with close ties to the Sundanese ethnic group native to the area.
He struggled to pinpoint the origins of his club’s feud with Persija-who he described as “enemies”-but the unemployed father of four deplored Sirla’s killing. “It’s barbaric,” he said in an interview