A day in Indonesian soccer, locker room rage, racism, Persipura & Arema slug it out.
In their 9th December away game against Arema Malang reigning league champions Persipura Jayapura complained of racist abuse hurled at them by Arema fans. A team spokesman said
Aremania (Arema supporters) sang racist songs about Papuans, and they threw bottles at the players.
Some Persipura players attempted to confront opposition team fans, but were obstructed by security guards.
Losing 2-1 the Papuan players later took out their frustrations on the locker room facilities at Arema’s stadium, causing about 20 million rupiah’s worth of damage, it is claimed.
On 12th December the disciplinary committee of the Badan Liga Indonesia (BLI) PSSI handed out a 50 million rupiah fine to Arema over the racial abuse issue and condemned the club to playing one match without spectators, and gate receipts.
The loss of one match’s gate receipts was a stinging blow for Arema boss Abdul Haris:
We average a take of 500 million rupiah per game, but it only costs us about 180 million to put a game on.
The club known as “Singo Edan” are far from the poor house yet however, with gate receipts for the 2009-2010 season so far estimated by management at around 2 billion rupiah, with 725 million rupiah of this coming from the big clash with heavyweights Persipura alone. Figures are pre-tax, before accounting for operational costs, fines for racism, and damage bills from visiting team vandalism. surabayapost
I truely love football (not soccer) but racism is a serious issue among football hooligans. Juventus hooligans have shown their ugle face again this weekend.
But in general Indonesia society is deeply racist, with or without football. Everything is divided into ethnicities, thanks to Javanese Orba mentality (and I’m of Javanese descent myself). Sunda vs Jawa, pribumi vs Chinese, Melayu vs Melanesian, it’s apalling really.
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What did they sang? (the lyrics). Would love to know.