Soccer fans in Surabaya have agreed to a plan by the city’s soccer club, Persebaya, to change the name of the team’s fans in a bid to whitewash their tainted image as a bunch of hooligans, a team official said Tuesday.
Acting Persebaya chairman Cholid Goromah said the club would rename the supporters from bonek to Green Force, in reference to the team’s shirt color.
The change in name, he added, was to distance the club and its fans from the latter’s penchant for violence and hooliganism.
“We’ll launch it on Jan. 31 and invite PSSI [Indonesian Soccer Association] chairman Nurdin Halid, disciplinary commissioner Hinca Panjaitan, [soccer league] CEO Joko Driyono, Surabaya Mayor Bambang D.H. and the military top brass in East Java,” Cholid said.
The club will also invite former East Java governor Basofi Sudirman and several senior soccer figures from the province and across the country, as well as hundreds of team supporters.
Along with the change in name, Cholid went on, the club would also reorganize the entire management of the fans, including by issuing membership ID cards and departure forms, and restructuring administrative and coordination issues, such as soccer team management and coordinators of supporters.
Also on Tuesday, Persebaya fan Kuncoro Setyono went to the Surabaya Supporters Foundation office to find out the latest development on the fate of 19 bonek arrested during a riot in Surakarta, Central Java, last Sunday.
“I was born in Magetan [in East Java], but I’ve been a bonek since junior high,” he said.
“But I’m opposed to violence. My visit here is one of solidarity as a Surabaya arek [local youth].”
Wikipedia traces the etymology of the term bonek to the daily newspaper Jawa Pos in 1989, which reported on the phenomenal number of Persebaya fans who flocked to Jakarta for an away game.
The fans religiously attend all of Persebaya’s games, even the away ones, and their journeys out of town have long been part of their lore.
