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Persipura go Down Under

I've been banging on about the importance of Indonesia and Australia fostering greater ties in football for some time now, including the establishment of an annual Indonesia-Australia Cup, which to date has not seen the light of day. (Not everything that comes out of this formidable mouth is taken seriously by the suits at Football Federation Australia.)

Some years ago, in a wistful moment, I even advocated the entry of an Indonesian side into the Australian A-League and was laughed down by the parochial mob back home as having had too many Bintangs the night before.

So imagine my pride and vindication this week when an Australian friend, Gerard Clark, sent me a news item reporting that Indonesia Super League megaclub and current champion Persipura Jayapura was considering defecting to the A-League.

There has been trouble brewing in West Papua ever since Persipura made the decision to walk off the ground during the final of the Copa Indonesia against Sriwijaya FC on June 28.

Trailing 1-0, Persipura was incensed when a Sriwijaya player handballed in his own penalty area and the resulting pleas for a penalty fell on deaf ears from the referee, who got a headbutt from Persipura's Nigerian striker Ernest Jeremiah for his trouble.

The PSSI, the Indonesian FA, summarily banned the club from next year's Copa. Jeremiah and his non-playing Brazilian teammate Alberto Goncalves, who egged on the team to quit, were also banned from all football in the country for three years - three years! - and the club chairman, Manase Robert Kambu, who ordered the walkoff and happens to be the mayor of Jayapura, was sidelined for two. Jeremiah has since buggered off to China to play for Huangzhou Greentown.

In my view the PSSI was right to ban Persipura from the Copa Indonesia. A walkoff by any team in any situation that does not involve direct endangerment to their players (such as a riot, a fire, a terrace collapsing) should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Headbutting a referee, meanwhile, is a disgrace. Jeremiah can't run from his shame. But the bans on Goncalves and Kambu appear disproportionate and that is partly why 100 Persipura fans picketed outside Papua Provincial Legislative Council in Jayapura this week.

There has been talk of the regional governor withdrawing tobacco sponsorship of football in the region and even of taking the club's case straight to the top - Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - unless the penalties are overturned. Then, breathtakingly, there is the threat to defect to Australia.

But it's all pie in the sky.

As my ESPN Star Sports colleague Antony Sutton wrote in his "Jakarta Casual" blog last weekend: "Of course the Aussies would welcome a team who get the sulks when things don't go their way with open arms. But they would draw the line at headbutting officials and walking off mid-game."

An Indonesian club might one day take its place in an expanded, regional A-League, and I think some point it is going to be inevitable, along with the inclusion of a Singaporean team, but it's not going to be an outfit like Persipura that takes such diabolical liberties with the definition of the word "professional".

West Papua might still be a wild frontier in all sorts of ways, but Persipura's behaviour has no place in football in Indonesia, Australia or anywhere it's played.

It's a lesson that needs to be learned - the hard way.

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