PSSI to sanction 37 rebel referees

The Indonesian Soccer Association (PSSI) said it will sanction 37 referees who have refused to officiate in the Indonesian Premier League (IPL) after making the switch over to rival Indonesian Super League (ISL), which the association has deemed illegal.

“We have received around 37 names of referees. We are verifying the data and will immediately decide their sanctions,” PSSI discipline committee deputy chief Catur Agus Saptono said Monday, as quoted by tempo.co.

He explained that the list of names had been given to the committee by the Arbitration Director.

He said the discipline committee had held an internal meeting on the fate of the referees last Friday. However, he was reluctant to reveal the result of the meeting or say when results would be announced.

Pending potential sanctions, Catur said the PSSI would not need to summon each referee for verification purposes.

“The data we have now is more reliable and complete. For example, it has the list of games that they were involved in. This is different from our previous data, so we do not need to summon them one by one,” he said.(awd)