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Govt sets sights on improving sports ecosystem following recent success
Building on ongoing soccer reforms and the surprise success at the SEA Games, the government has promised more improvements through the implementation of a national sports blueprint, in hopes of instilling a “sports fever”.
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Fans attend a victory parade for the Indonesian soccer team in Jakarta on May 19, after winning the gold medal in the men's event at the 32nd SEA Games in Phnom Penh.
(AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
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uilding on ongoing soccer reforms and the surprise success at the SEA Games, the government has promised more improvements through the implementation of a national sports blueprint, in hopes of instilling a “sports fever”.
Launched by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2021, the blueprint, known as DBON, was expected to be a game changer that could fix Indonesia’s notoriously problematic sports sector by bypassing the entrenched bureaucracy through the establishment of a national coordination team. The team, led by Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, is responsible for designing policies, and supervising and evaluating their implementations.
The DBON is a long-term strategy that mandates the creation of shorter-term plans every five years until 2045, with the first phase taking place from 2021 to 2024.
Two years on, the blueprint is not nearly what it was touted to be, barring some training camps for youth athletes held by a handful of universities last year. To make matters worse, Indonesian soccer, by far the most popular sport in the country, has been hit by high-profile controversies, including the deadly Kanjuruhan Stadium stampede in late last year and the cancellation of the FIF U-20 World Cup some two months ago.
But a sense of refound enthusiasm for Indonesia to make a mark on global sports was in the air recently, following the gold medal in soccer at the SEA Games after 32 years of waiting and a planned visit of World Cup champions Argentina to Jakarta for a friendly match against the national team.
Ma’ruf said the government was planning to use the momentum to further spread “sports fever” and improve sports management and teamwork among the government, sports associations and local administrations.
“We certainly can’t just be satisfied with what we have achieved, since we have even bigger goals to reach,” Ma’ruf said after a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, which evaluated the progress of the sports reforms.
