Commentary: Lessons from the cancellation of Indonesia’s under-20 FIFA World Cup hosting rights

JAKARTA: On Mar 29, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) cancelled Indonesia’s host rights for the Under-20 (U-20) World Cup “due to the current circumstances” following the debate in Indonesia over the Israeli youth team’s expected participation. While FIFA did not specifically refer to the debate for its decision, its official statement mentioned the October 2022 Kanjuruhan stadium tragedy as one reason.

Indonesia now faces potential additional sanctions by FIFA but the cancellation has cost the country millions of dollars in preparatory work. The government had already spent approximately 675 billion rupiah (US$45.2 million) on organising, training and renovation costs.

This cost-sharing was also borne by a programme called FIFA Forward 3.0 for as much as US$5.6 million. This latter amount would have gone to a permanent training facility for Indonesia’s national team in the proposed Nusantara, Indonesia’s new capital city but FIFA has frozen this money indefinitely.

The cancellation also shattered the dreams of Indonesia’s youth soccer team, which was looking forward to its first-ever U-20 World Cup and left millions of Indonesian football fans bitter and angry.

Indonesia was appointed host after winning the bid against Brazil and Peru at the end of 2019. President Joko Widodo had issued Presidential Decree No 19 of 2020 to set up the Indonesia FIFA U-20 World Cup Organising Committee and Presidential Instruction No 8 of 2020 to guarantee the mobilisation of support for the event, including ensuring the commitment of the central and six provincial governments expected to host the competition.

Yet, this momentum and euphoria changed into polemics by the final weeks of March