The removal of Indra Sjafri from the position of technical director caused controversy and PSSI Chairman Erick Thohir spoke up.
Erick Thohir straightened out the skewed news that was blowing about his decision, which was considered by many to be the “dismissal” of Indra Sjafri.
Since the Mochamad Iriawan era, Indra Sjafri has held the position of technical director. He was then assigned to coach the U-22 Indonesian national team at the 2023 SEA Games.
The U-22 Indonesian National Team, which at that time was the responsibility of Shin Tae-yong, was given to Indra Sjafri because the coach from South Korea was asked to focus on galvanizing the squad for the 2023 U-20 World which ultimately was canceled in the country.
Indra Sjafri also succeeded in bringing the U-22 Indonesian National Team to win SEA Games gold after the last time it was won in 1991.
For Indra Sjafri’s achievements, Erick Thohir again assigned Indra Sjafri as coach for the next few events, and removed him as director. The decision was seen by many as a subtle way to remove Indra from his position.
“Yesterday there was also controversy as if I fired Indra Sjafri, that’s a conversation we’ve discussed that because we have two great coaches (Shin Tae-yong and Indra Sjafri), the technical director must be independent,” explained Erick Thohir at the Fairmont Hotel, Jakarta , Friday (26/5/2023)
“Because of that, one of the options is that we are trying to have a meeting with the German League, as we did yesterday with Japan,” he said.
As is known, PSSI has collaborated with the Japanese Football Federation (JFA). One of the focuses of the collaboration is on refereeing and women’s football.
“They (JFA) will help Indonesian referees to be transparent and professional. We will also ask for female coaches from Japan for our national team because it has been proven that they have won the U-20 World Cup,” he said.
“Yesterday Myanmar also used a coach from Japan. For Germany we are looking at the CV for the technical director. So we make everything fair and transparent. We want to build on the tradition of being professional and transparent,” he concluded.
