PSSI plans to punish ISL for recent games

The Indonesian Soccer Association (PSSI) is seeking to impose disciplinary sanctions on the Indonesian Soccer League (ISL), after the league kicked off on Thursday without the association’s consent.

“The Competition Committee will send a letter to the Disciplinary Committee to take action [against the ISL] for the matches held today,” PSSI competition committee chief Sihar Sitorus said Thursday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

He explained that data from the Law and Human Rights Ministry stipulated that PT Liga Indonesia, the organizers of the ISL, was 99 percent owned by the PSSI.

As a consequence, all events organized by the organizing company should have had PSSI approval.

“PT Liga Indonesia is owned by the PSSI, and so it can also be said that ISL, as product of PT Liga Indonesia is also indirectly owned by the PSSI,” he said.

The ISL season opened on Thursday with a match between reigning champions Persipura Jayapura and Persiba Balikpapan at Mandala Stadium in Jayapura.

However, the ISL received no approval from the country’s soccer body because the PSSI had earlier sanctioned the breakaway Indonesian Premier League (IPL) as the country’s only official professional soccer league.