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Getting the News Out!

Persebaya Surabaya's Anoure Obiora (above) tries to pass Persita Tangerang's Louis Edmundo (below) during a match last November. (Antara Photo/M Risyal Hidayat)

As a foreigner it is very difficult to keep up to date with local football. Local English language media tends to be minimal while both of the official FA Web sites are poorly maintained and irregularly updated. Finding out when and where games are to be played is a chore. And people tend to avoid chores!

I was on my way to Jakarta one day with the aim of seeing a game in the evening. Catching the crowds outside the stadium just after lunch suggested that perhaps the kickoff would be sooner. So we pushed some buttons. One told us kickoff would be at 7 p.m., another at 4 pm. We went to the stadium and were told it would start at 3.30 p.m!

Most clubs don't have Web sites so it is left to fans to disseminate information and that is often done in a haphazard fashion though some supporters, Persib, Persiba, Arema and Persisam for example, do a sterling job.

I'm not sure how many foreigners watch football in Indonesia but given how hard it is to get accurate information I can't see the number being too high. The game is just so inaccessible to many and unfathomable to most.

Thai football on the other hand has quite a following among the expat community with many teams boasting pretty large numbers of Western fans. They are well served by a number of fan sites and blogs devoted to clubs and the game there, including one called Bangkok Football Weekend which looks ahead to games in and around the capital.

Such a project would be unworkable here. One Jakarta team, Persija IPL, played their last home game in the Central Java city of Solo. Teams like Persitara seemingly had two games in one day.

And while Jakarta teams have problems playing in Jakarta, Persiram Raja Ampat, from the idyllic islands off Papua, are currently playing their home games in Jakarta. Sometimes. Their game last week against Persiba was postponed at the last minute because the booked security personnel had been called to a massive demo elsewhere in Jakarta.

That information does get out at all is a testament to the way the informal need-to-know network works. Supporters clubs have a hierarchy and the leadership tends to work very closely with the club. The leadership passes any fixture information down to regional coordinators, branches if you like, and so it goes further down the chain. For them it works but if you're not part of that food chain it can be extremely frustrating finding anything out at all.

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