BREAKING NEWS - 130 People Died Due to Chaos After The Indonesian League Football Match

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There is no one victory and a sports match that is worth a life

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Sunday morning, October 2, 2022
I wake up early as usual at 5 am Indonesian time, my waking routine is very simple. After I wake up, I go to the bathroom, pray at dawn, and check the news on crypto prices or trending twitter. The feeling I woke up that morning was a little annoyed, my Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 smartphone ran out of battery all night, and I had to charge it for a few minutes to fully charge the smartphone.

I'm a little sleepy, because I sleep at 12 o'clock at night, meaning I've only slept for about 5 hours. I try to turn on the television, to watch local broadcasts or the morning news, activities that I rarely do after the internet. I rarely watch tv, because I prefer to read news from smartphone applications only. I made a cup of coffee and turned on my television, I took the remote, turned down the volume of the television which was too noisy and changed the channel to the biggest news tv channel in my country, there was a big tagline BREAKING NEWS at 5.30 that morning, 127 people died only one night.

I was surprised, very, very surprised. The tv remote and the coffee cup I was holding fell to the floor, shattered. I didn't feel the heat of the coffee in my coffee, it hurt my heart to see the news, I have never felt resigned and hurt because I saw news of death this deep. 127 People Died because of a football match in Malang, well, only because of a football match, the number will probably increase seeing the conditions and the videos I watched on the field.

I don't watch local football anymore, firstly because my local football team is in the second division and also for me the local football league in Indonesia is very unattractive to watch. What do you expect from a football match in a country whose fifa ranking is still in the 150s and is on the continent of Asia. In addition, gambling, match fixing and poor performance of referees make every game run strange. However, I understand that the Indonesian football market is huge, especially because of the excessive fanaticism. Yup, Indonesians watch football because they are looking for entertainment because they are tired and local fanaticism.

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Chronology of the Tragedy of the Night
So, what happened on the night, October 1, 2022. I tried to summarize to my friends from various sources that I got. Because it needs an explanation and understanding about it, and I will try to describe it so that it can be a lesson for me and all of my friends.

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Saturday night, Week 11 of the BRI Indonesia League 1 (the main division of the football league in Indonesia) brought together a fierce team duel with the potential for very high chaos. The East Java Derby between Arema Malang vs. Persebaya Surabaya took place at Kanjuruhan Stadium, Malang and Arema Malang acted as the host. The East Java Derby is a match full of tension, history and also very heavy prestige. The history of clashes between supporters has often occurred between these two parties.

Given the potential for riots, since last week, the match organizing committee has asked PSSI (Indonesian Football Association) and PT. LIB (Indonesian league organizers) to move the match time to 3 pm to minimize the potential for chaos. The suggestion was rejected for no apparent reason and the match continued as scheduled. In addition, the organizers and the Indonesian Police forbade supporters away from Persebaya Surabaya to watch in Malang, in order to prevent clashes. The ban was accepted by Persebaya supporters and all agreed not to come to Malang.

The match was running normally on Saturday night, the match organizing committee said that it sold around 25 thousand tickets for the match from the stadium capacity of 35 thousand spectators, the occupancy should only be 70% of the stadium capacity. Unfortunately, when we watch the replay of the match, we can see the stadium is full of people. For information, the ticket system for football matches in Indonesia has not been integrated and there is no numbering in the stands so there are many loopholes to manipulate and can benefit certain parties.

The final result of the match, Arema Malang suffered their first defeat at own home since 1994 by their eternal rivals Persebaya Surabaya. This loss also made a negative streak over the last five matches of this football team, three defeats, one draw and only one win. At the end of the match, several supporters from Arema Malang jumped the fence, entered the field to confront the management, vented their emotions and also gave criticism to the players. Seen in the videos that are circulating on Twitter, the players apologize to the supporters, then two supporters enter the field and are followed by other supporters.

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Shortness of Breath Due to Crowd Control Gas
The police in charge of securing the stadium conditions tried to prevent the supporters from taking to the field, the chaos situation was out of control seeing the conditions on the field like a battlefield, the supporters in the stands took to the field. I actually saw in the video, the supporters were under control and beaten but sometimes we don't know the real situation. Suddenly, crowd control gas shot was fired into the stands, and panicked the entire stadium.

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Have you ever been hit by crowd control gas? I've felt it when I was a student and participated in demonstrations in the 2010s. Crowd control gas is considered the fastest way to break up a crowd, if we can describe the feeling we experience when we are hit by crowd control gas, it is like we are going to die. We will feel shortness of breath, sore eyes, and stagger. If we rub our eyes the effect will be more painful, even as healthy as our bodies will still feel the pain.

According to FIFA Stadium Safety and Security Regulations Article 19 B, there is a prohibition against using firearms or crowd control gas to control crowds and chaos. In fact, the two objects should be banned from entering the stadium. Why ? the use of crowd control gas will cause panic in the audience.

As happened at Kanjuruhan Stadium last Saturday night, the majority of the spectators who died of death were jostling to get out of the stadium because they wanted to avoid the crowd control gas. When crowd control gas was fired into the crowds of spectators, it was like a weapon of death. Imagine, in the middle of a narrow crowd, limited air space and must also be exposed to crowd control gas, I can't imagine how gripping that moment was, it was very barbaric.

The biggest question for me, who is responsible for this tragedy? supporters? Indonesian FA ? Indonesian league regulator? the police? Or the competition organizing committee? I don't know, but in Indonesia there are no policy makers who are ashamed and responsible for tragedies, usually they will pass and be forgotten over time while saying "we will make this moment a learning so it doesn't happen another time"

For me, crowd control gas fired into the stands, which were crowded with people, was the cause of these hundreds of deaths. If you want to investigate this tragedy, you should start with three important questions. Why did the police bring crowd control gas? why was the crowd control gas shooting done inside the stadium and who gave the order to do this? Lastly, why was the crowd control gas fired in the middle of the crowded stands. We know the police won't act if they don't get orders.

This Sunday morning, no one thought something terrible like this would happen. According to the latest news, 129 died and I can't imagine going to the stadium to watch the ball and coming back a corpse. Stop the competition and STOP the Football League in Indonesia right now, because no victory is worth one life, let alone 129 lives lost. Some of the victims, also still children who were brought by their parents to the stadium, wanted to get entertainment but had to meet death.

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I don't know what the right words are anymore, I am very confused and feel sad. Just imagine, how can we explain and tell that there was one night when 130 people came to the stadium to watch football with friends and family, and then never went home because they had to face death. Rest In Peace for the victims, it may seem cliché but I want this to be the last tragedy.

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