Football Association of Indonesia or PSSI (Persatuan Sepakbola Seluruh Indonesia) is the national governing body of football in Indonesia. It functions to develop Indonesian football to reach the best achievement regionally as well as Internationally. Indonesian people expect their national team to show their best but the reality turns out to be the other way around. I guess it is about high time to have a total reform in PSSI. Let me tell you the reasons.
First, Indonesian national team have never won any trophy for 10 years. It was in SEA Games in 1991 when Indonesia won the gold medal in football. At that time Indonesia showed that they were the best in South East Asia and beat all their rivals on their way to win the gold medal. However, it was all the past. At present, there is no more trophy or significant achievement. It shows that there is something wrong in developing and improving Indonesian football which is supposed to be the responsibility of PSSI. It is clear that PSSI or to be more specific, Nurdin Halid and his staff in PSSI have failed to carry out their jobs.
Next, there is no regular youth competition in different stages. As we know that in many European countries, they run regular competition for young players. Having junior teams for every club is a must. Those young players also participate in the competition based on their ages. For example in Italy, there is Primavera Competition for young players. This kind competition is useful to bring out and produce young talented players for the senior teams which eventually will lead to a better performance in the national team. However, we cannot see this kind of competition in Indonesia. It's clear that there is a missing link in the development of young players. Consequently, Indonesian team cannot compete with their opponents in Regional and International levels. Again, Nurdin Halid and his staff in PSSI are the ones to be blamed for this failure.
The last but not the least, there is no transparency in the financial management of PSSI. We know that a governing body in football like PSSI is an independent body. Nobody or not even the government can intervene PSSI in any aspects. If the government try to intervene the management of PSSI, the sanctions from FIFA await. As a result, there is lack of control from the outsiders, especially in the financial management aspect. There is no transparency how the budget in PSSI is spent or where it goes. Many people suspect that there have been corruption and manipulation in PSSI. In this case, PSSI should welcome a CPA firm or government institution to carry out an internal audit to their financial management.
To conclude, seeing all those facts, I believe that total reform in PSSI is a must. As a chairman of PSSI, Nurdin Halid and his staff have to step down as a form of moral accountability because they have failed in doing their job. Transparency in Financial Management is the other thing that has to be tidied up. Hopefully, by a total reform, Indonesian football will flourish and give a good impact in the performance of the national team. Then, we will see a better Indonesian national team and all Indonesian football lovers are proud of their national team.
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