Hours before the Indonesian Soccer Association’s (PSSI) long-anticipated extraordinary congress began, allegations have emerged that supporters of former PSSI chairman and former graft convict Nurdin Halid were shopping for votes.
”As way as i do know, seventy two voters have sealed a deal to support Agusman Effendi,” Maung Bandung soccer club’s Deni Susanto said in Surakarta on Friday morning.
Agusman, who was tipped to win the race to steer the PSSI, was named acting PSSI chairman when Nurdin was imprisoned for graft in 2004.
Deni claimed he was offered cash to vote for Agusman. ”Indonesian Amateur League Agency chief Iwan Budianto offered me a US$15,000 ‘down payment’ if I voted for Agusman at a gathering at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Jakarta on could nineteen.
“He said that if Agusman won the congress, I’d get extra money – anywhere from Rp two hundred million [US$23,470] to Rp five hundred million,” Deni said. He questioned the PSSI’s call to strip him of his vote on Tuesday for disciplinary reasons. ”I feel i used to be banned from the vote as a result of I refused to cooperate.”
Deni said he was stripped of his vote as a result of his team conceding a walkover during a Division III match against ISP Purworejo on Feb. twelve when Maung Bandung was at the globe Intercity Invitational tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The loss dropped his team to eleventh place within the league, leading to Deni’s ineligibility to register as a congress voter. solely officers from the highest ten clubs within the divisions will register to be congress participants.
Similar claims of vote shopping for have conjointly emerged from a supply near cluster seventy eight – the cluster of supporters of disqualified candidates Gen. George Toissutta and businessman Arifin Panigoro.
The supply claimed cluster seventy eight had placed its support behind newly elected chairman Djohar Arifin Husin and deputy chairman Farid Rahman once George and Arifin were disqualified by world soccer’s governing body, FIFA.
The supply added that a secret meeting was held at the Hotel Lor Inn in Surakarta on Friday night.
“At the meeting, thirty five voters created deals for his or her votes with the candidates’ campaign groups,” he said.
The supply conjointly alleged that at an equivalent time during a hotel in Yogyakarta – a two-hour drive from Surakarta sixty five different voters received bribes from the campaign managers of different candidates.
“We can do no matter is critical to make sure our candidate isn't embarrassed by losing,” said the supply, who is himself a campaign manager.
The supply said candidates had to dig terribly deep in their pockets as they bribed every voter Rp five hundred million.
Yusuf Rizal, who withdrew from the race to be PSSI chair, saying he was disgusted by the sturdy chance that bribery was being employed to win the competition.
“I don’t have the ability to challenge [candidates] with deep pockets,” he said.
A member of cluster seventy eight, Saleh Mukadar, neither admitted nor denied that vote shopping for passed off.
However, he said cluster seventy eight faced issues with voters who nearly reneged on their previous “deal” which will have led to their candidate losing. “That was why [newly elected deputy chairman] Farid solely received forty seven votes within the initial spherical. it absolutely was bit and go, they appeared like they were planning to back aloof from our deal,” he said.
