National team to be temporarily funded by 5 state enterprises: Agum

Indonesian Soccer Association (PSSI) Normalization Committee chairman Agum Gumelar says the committee will work with five state-owned enterprises to finance the team.

The five companies are Bukit Asam, Bank Mandiri, PT Telkom, Pertamina and Semen Padang.
“We will sign an Mo U with five sponsors on July 1. With this cooperation agreement we hope there will be no more problems for our national team,” Agum said Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

The national team has several big events on its agenda, including the upcoming SEA Games, and the pre-World Cup for the Senior National Team. Meanwhile, trial matches between the senior team against Singapore and Thailand in July have been cancelled because of a lack of funding.

PSSI secretary-general and acting chief Djoko Driyono said the association’s troubles were one of the main reasons behind the funding problems.

“Before the organization’s troubles, the national team had full support from the state budget, amounting to around Rp 50 billion (US$5.8 million). With the organization still experiencing troubles, the budget is still in a planning phase …” Djoko added.
 
The PSSI is planning to soon hold a national congress, during which it hopes to elect new leaders, after the previous two attempted elections ended up deadlocked.

Djoko said that once its new leaders were selected, the normalization committee would work with the Indonesian Sports Committee and the Indonesian Olympics Committee (KONI/KOI) and the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry to discuss the team’s budget.

“When everything is settled, God Willing, everything, including the funding from the state budget, can be organized as quickly as possible. We are currently making some adjustments to cope with the available budget,” he said.

The companies will channel a total of Rp 9 billion into the team.

“One state enterprise has agreed to provide Rp 1 billion, but I forget which company, and the rest each will give Rp 2 billion,” he said.