Gov’t to Prepare Venue and National Team for FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2021

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed Minister of Youth and Sports Zainudin Amali to prepare the venue and national team for FIFA U-20 World Cup to be held in 2021.

“The venue must be determined immediately so that we can do early repair. All of the chosen stadiums will undergo repairment whether it is minor or major. On the national team, the President emphasized that the team must have an extensive preparation to avoid elimination at the preliminary round,” the Minister stated after a Limited Meeting on the preparations for the FIFA U-20 World Cup, at the Presidential Office, Friday (17/1).

The Government has proposed 10 venues to FIFA for the grand event. After a series of meetings between the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) team and FIFA representatives at the FIFA headquarters, the venue will be determined on 25 January.

“The initial information stated that six stadiums will be used, but for efficiency and fast coordination, FIFA will only use four stadiums. However, we are still negotiating, we ask for six stadiums,” the Minister said, adding that the reasons are so that many regions can feel the atmosphere of the international matches and technically, for the grass use frequency.

On the stadium’s lack of quality stated by FIFA, the Minister vowed to improve the stadiums. “Stadium like Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) which has the highest score will receive minor repairment, while there are other stadiums that will receive major improvement. It depends on FIFA’s decision, we will follow it,” he said.

The Minister also said that the head coach of the national team Shin Taeyong did not state flood-affected stadiums as a reason to determine the chosen stadiums, but more of the quality of the stadiums. “In our opinion, the field is good, but after his inspection, it only looks good but it does not meet the standard. It is a concern that players will be easily injured,” he stated.

On such a field, he will coordinate with the General Chair of PSSI to find a replacement. “PSSI will propose, the Government will help to decide,” he said.

The Minister stated that the budget will be handled by the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing. “the Ministry of Youth and Sports will wait for the draft budget prepared by PSSI both for the event organizing and the national team,” he said, adding that as of now, they still wait for the parts which will become Indonesia’s responsibility on the event before arranging the budget. (TGH/FID/EN)

Translated by: Fairuzzamani Inayatillah
Reviewed by: Yuyu Mulyani