Indonesia bid to host a football World Cup
Roar Guru
By Alan Nicolea, 25 Apr 2009 Alan Nicolea is a Roar Guru
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Although Indonesia has never gotten close to qualifying for a FIFA World Cup since their declaration of independence in 1949, the Asian nation suddenly finds itself as the dark horse to host the world’s premier sporting event in 2018 and 2022, according to FIFA.
The footballing world has once again reached out its global hand to provide a country without much football history with a chance to host the most important event on the footballing calendar.
Indonesia has never qualified for a World Cup, nor have they ever hosted a FIFA accredited tournament in their history.
The closest they came to a potential World Cup appearance was in the lead-up to the 1958 World Cup in Switzerland.
Indonesia eliminated China in the preliminary stages, but they then had to retire from competition. The Asian nation would have to wait fifteen years to play another World Cup qualifying match.
Although they failed to make significant inroads in 1974, Indonesia still recorded a memorable win against rivals New Zealand in what was perhaps a small stepping stone for things to come.
Indonesia’s greatest footballing moment came during their World Cup qualifying campaign for the 1982 finals in Spain.
Led by Risdianto, who was arguably their greatest ever footballer, Indonesia managed to defeat major Oceania rival Australia 1-0 at the Utama Senayan stadium in Jakarta.
Although this victory did not grant Indonesia a World Cup spot in Spain, it allowed Australia’s trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand to assure their World Cup qualification.
Currently, Indonesia finds itself ranked 138th in the FIFA World rankings. Their journey to South Africa ended prematurely during the second phase of qualifying due to an 11-1 loss suffered at the hands of Syria.
One only has to look at the amount of competition that Indonesia has participated in, to see why such one sided results are becoming a commodity.
Since their independence, Indonesia has only qualified for the 1959 under 20 World Cup in Japan, where they lost all three group games.
Before that, Indonesia qualified for the football tournament at the 1952 Olympics.
Despite the lean footballing history, Indonesia can look forward to a history making future.
The fourth most populated country in the world (with over 240 million people), has suddenly found its place on the footballing map.
Indonesia will face massive obstacles in their bid to host the 2018- 2022 World Cup with Spain-Portugal and Holland-Belgium also making strong bids.
And other nations, such as Australia, the United States, England and Russia, will also flex their financial muscle in front of FIFA president Sepp Blatter to ensure possible World Cup hosting rights in the next few years.
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Dave Webster said | April 25th 2009 @ 10:06am | Report comment
this statement
“Although this victory did not grant Indonesia a World Cup spot in Spain, it allowed Australia’s trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand to assure their World Cup qualification”
is a complete joke – New Zealand’s qualification was only assured after beating China 2-1 in a playoff – this was long after they had beaten Indonesia 5-0 and 2-0 in the 1st group (in which NZ were unbeaten) they then played in a second group against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia & China before having to have a playoff against China
Alan Nicolea said | April 25th 2009 @ 1:50pm | Report comment
Dave
Sorry about the mistake.
Australia’s loss certainly helped though. Whether it be the result or the fact the kiwis were bouyed by the fact their trans tasman rivals lost to Indonesia. It must have given them the energy to go all the way.
Timmuh said | April 25th 2009 @ 4:35pm | Report comment
Given the lack of cities large enough to support the required stadia and accommodation required, Australia’s best chance of being a world cup host is to co-host. Indonesia is the obvious joint host, apart from the obvious security concerns. New Zealand don’t provide enough cities, grounds, etc and are i a different confederation, so they probably aren’t an option for co-hosting.
tifosi said | April 25th 2009 @ 6:48pm | Report comment
If they handed world cups to countries where fans show greater support, Indonesia would beat Australia any day of the week.
Unfortunately they have too many issues to deal with so hosting is beyond them. kudos for trying though.
Dave Webster said | April 25th 2009 @ 10:54pm | Report comment
Alan
sorry but by the time Indonesia played and beat Australia (which was a great result for them) New Zealand had already qualified for the 2nd stage of the competition so that game really had no effect except to provide some amusment to New Zealanders and prode for the Indoneasians
Its an interesting bid but can’t really see them managing to beat the likes of England (2018), Australia, USA or Russia
david said | April 25th 2009 @ 11:11pm | Report comment
Ok, anyone who takes Indonesia seriously as a World Cup host has lost all perspective on football reality.
I would suggest that this ‘tactic’ enables FIFA to play off potential hosts against each other.
It allows FIFA to extract as much money from the potential host nations as they possibly can.
Incidentally, the IOC are the ‘masters’ of this!
David V. said | April 27th 2009 @ 11:57pm | Report comment
You can also add the 1986 qualifiers when Indonesia made the second round of qualifying but were knocked out by south Korea.
It really is amazing that New Zealand would get there with what was essentially a part-time side, blowing away teams like Saudi Arabia, the logistics and climate seemed no problem for them back then.
Imagine what it would have been like for the Chinese too. According to many Chinese fans, the “class of ’82″ nearly men were one of the most technically accomplished group of players ever produced by China, only to squander a golden opportunity to showcase China’s emergence from isolation under Mao. This has been a depressingly familiar tale for China ever since, except that it’s become far worse in the last five years.