Wandering through the streets of Jakarta, it’s not uncommon to see kids dressed in European soccer jerseys darting in and out of the cars. Most of the shirts may be fakes, but this doesn’t deny the presence that the big leagues have in Indonesia. And with the amount of big league European clubs setting up academies in Indonesia, this sight is only set to become more common.
FC Inter Milan, FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC, Real Madrid and Arsenal have all recently opened or announced their plans to establish elite soccer academies in Indonesia. They are set up with the aim of helping to bring soccer in Indonesia, a country that lives for the game, up to an international standard so that the national team can become competitive on the world stage.
But why were Inter Milan and other clubs so keen to make their mark in Indonesia? Inter Milan CEO Ernesto Paolillo said: “It is a large country with a large, young population. It’s not impossible to say that you [Indonesia] don’t have many, many talents”.
“We believe that the potential [for Indonesian soccer players] is very, very high,” Paolillo added. “Now we are trying to understand, in a very professional way, the best action to do it [develop the players] very well. We’ve spoken also with our doctors and our experts and they told us also the physical preparation over here is for sport and for sports like soccer [is good], so we think that [if we can] teach technical soccer… physically they can be very good athletes.”
There is no denying that Indonesia wants to lift its FIFA ranking from 143. Although once ranked as high as 87th in the world back in 2001, the national team’s performance has plummeted over the past 10 years.
Currently, Indonesia is ranked 20th in the Asian Zone. As Dario Gambit Fauri from 360 Sports Marketing says, “We are hoping to be number four in Asia [by 2022]”. Fauri also hopes that Indonesia will continue on to the World Cup Qualifications by 2026.
Soccer consultant for Barca as they set up their franchise in Indonesia, Tanto Marti, agrees that this goal is achievable “if we work really hard and we do the right thing”.
However, surely the story stems deeper than this.
With a population of 240 million people, 28 million of which Inter Milan classify as “fan potential”, there is a massive opportunity for such clubs to succeed in Indonesia, at least in terms of growing their fan base. And more fans equals more revenue. According to Inter Milan’s analysis of “worldwide fan potential”, Indonesia comes third behind the world’s most populous country China which has an estimated total fan potential of 193 million, and
soccer-mad Brazil (32 million).
“We are really excited [about our Indonesian fans],” Paolillo exclaims. “They are really emotional, and because of the distance between Italy and Indonesia… they up to now don’t… have any opportunity to see games [and still], it’s unbelievable the number of supporters. This is one of the reasons why we want to come here.”
For Liverpool as well, there’s something that sets Indonesia aside from the rest in terms of its target market potential. “[It] is the massive fan base,” says new Liverpool FC International Soccer Academy Soccer School (LFCIFAss) coach, Ben Parsonage. “It’s the biggest fan base outside of the UK.”
However, the Liverpool coach is also refreshingly realistic when answering the million dollar question: why Indonesia? “This is a business just like anything,” he admits. “Obviously, if you put your money into something you’d want to see a profit.”
According to Paolillo, to increase the selling point of the team is to increase revenue. “Most of the revenue must come from merchandising… they are increasing… but we need to improve the merchandising.”
A significant problem that these European clubs face entering the unknown Indonesian market is that with so much reliance on merchandising for revenue, there is the problem of “fake”, lower-quality products flooding the market.
However, according to de Vivo, “the problem of fakes is the same all around the world”. Rather his strategy is to globally increase the value of the official merchandise by ensuring that the quality of the real products is better than the quality of the fake through initiatives such as inspection of the manufacturers. “You cannot beat the fakes,” he says. “But you can reduce them by more than 50 percent.”
De Vivo is also adamant that a definitive sports marketing strategy is one key factor to making the soccer industry in Indonesia a success. However, everything still leads back to the value of the fan base. “I think the most important thing is the competitive level and the fan base,” he says. In Indonesia there is a fan base, but unfortunately currently there is no international-standard competitive level. However Inter Milan sees this fan base as a massive potential — for both them and Indonesian soccer — to grow from.
Parsonage is of a similar view. “I personally think [that if] a child is coming to a soccer school… he’s got to have something to aspire to, he’s got to have an aim, a goal, and at the moment [in Indonesia] do children have that?” he asks. “I think the tunnel’s dark now for the children you know.”
Still, Parsonage also believes that the Indonesian soccer industry can be a success, and that international soccer academies can contribute to this. “I think they’ve [Indonesia] got all the resources there for it to go to the next level, with a little bit of a push and a little bit of guiding from the right people I think it can be a huge success.”
Additionally, Liverpool is open to learning about the unique soccer environment that exists within Indonesia. “We’re always open to people who can help you just as much as we can help them,” Parsonage says.
Paolillo also thinks that by expanding their presence in Indonesia, this can lift Inter Milan’s standing in their home Serie A league. “Now we have a great player from Japan [Yuto Nagatomo],” he says. “Why not in the future have a player coming from Indonesia?”
So there’s the fact that Indonesia seems to be a bottomless fan base for these European clubs, there are endless partnership opportunities, and then there’s the fact that there is an abundance of raw, untapped Indonesian soccer talent.
A cynic might suggest that all of these reasons for opening up an international soccer academy in Indonesia come down to the bottom line, except for one perhaps — the desire to help Indonesia’s soccer prosper like so many think it can.
But why does each of these clubs think they’ve got what it takes to develop the soccer industry in Indonesia?
Parsonage, who has just moved to LFCIFAss from England three weeks ago on a one-year coaching contract, puts it simply. “The love of the club [shown there] was just phenomenal… this is why we’re here you know. If that’s the love for the club then we’re definitely in the right place,” he said reflecting on the enthusiasm show for the club at an event held for the Liverpool versus Manchester United blockbuster.
