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choing the unfinished struggle of late soccer legend Ronny Pattinasarany, one sports analyst says Sustainable youth competitions are needed for the long-term development of soccer in Indonesia, not instant soccer tournaments and festivals.

Pattinasarany, an Indonesian soccer legend who played in the 1970s and 1980s, was the director for early age development at the Indonesian Soccer Association (PSSI) in 2006 and co-founder of the under-15 Medco Soccer League in the same year.

“Qualified competitions for soccer youngsters in every age group — be it U-12, U-13, U-14, U-15 — are the foundation for a strong national team,” soccer observer and senior Kompas journalist Anton Sanjoyo said at a public discussion on national soccer development on Thursday.

Anton said that since 1994, soccer players competing in the main division — the competition level below the highest level, the Indonesian Super League (ISL) — lacked track records at the junior and youth levels as leagues were not available.

“It takes junior and youth competition leagues to create a sustainable competitive atmosphere among the future national players. Instant programs which send players abroad to Uruguay will not yield much in terms of results,” said Anton.

Amid the mushrooming of soccer schools over the last several years, Anton said that the government would be better off supporting school competition programs instead of giving money to soccer clubs that were only interested in adult competitions.

He said most of soccer clubs that competed at ISL lacked professional ethics as their incomes came from provincial budgets (APBD).

“They look as professional as other teams in the ISL, but it’s only skin deep. They are not professional at all in the way they run their organizations,” Anton said, adding that only three of the 18 clubs competing at the ISL had made efforts to not rely solely on APBD.

Most of the clubs had also failed to adhere to a PSSI regulation that required them to develop their own soccer academies as well as junior and youth clubs, as they have been too busy with ISL competitions.

Anton said businesses should put their money into the establishment more of youth and junior leagues throughout the country to build a better national team over the next 20 years.

He proposed imposing a five-year moratorium on establishing a national team so that the PSSI could focus on creating youth soccer league competitions at the national level.

In 1997, Malaysia imposed a similar moratorium on 148 players, umpires and the national team manager in the wake of a bribery case in the Malaysian soccer federation.

In July, prominent media group Kompas Gramedia launched its inaugural Kompas Gramedia Soccer League U-14, which will be completed in December. Sixteen soccer schools are expected to take part in the round-robin competition.

PSSI’s Indonesia Football Academy will closely monitor the performance of the league’s participants to start the federation’s talent-scouting database.