Things have certainly been interesting lately in Indonesian football, haven’t they? First there was the defeat to Oman last week, knocking them out of the Asian Cup. Then there was the disgruntled fan who decided that if his team could not find the net for the equalizer, he might as well run onto the pitch and give it a go himself (The Omani keeper was apparently as adept at stopping the Indonesian fans as he was at stopping its national team).
Now the Indonesian World Cup bid chief, Nurdin Halid, who has been facing repeated calls for his resignation, faces an even more difficult challenge. The Indonesian government may not get behind the bid at all!
In December, the Indonesian Football Federation said that a lack of support from the government would cause them to withdraw their bid. At present, it would be hard to blame government officials, many of whom have long questioned the wisdom of devoting the required funds to hosting the World Cup, given the poor state of Football in their own country. Whether Halid resigns as bid chief is difficult to predict, but it will take a lot more than a leadership change to save the runaway train that is Indonesia’s World Cup bid.
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