Indonesian football has changed history, local players 'have no chance' to play football

The CEO of the Indonesian League Management Company, Mr. Ferry Paulus, has just announced that from the 2025-2026 season, each club in the Super League (the new name of the Liga 1 National Championship) will be allowed to register up to 11 foreign players from any country. Of those, 8 can play at the same time in a match.

When announcing the information, Mr. Ferry Paulus said that increasing the number of foreign players aims to improve the quality and competitiveness of Indonesian clubs when representing the country in Asian tournaments.

Compared to last season, each club is only allowed to register 8 foreign players and can use a maximum of 6 people in a match.

This decision has created a wave of indignation in the football of the “thousand islands country”. The Indonesian Professional Footballers Association (APPI) assessed that the regulation of 11 foreign players in the Super League is completely contradictory, disadvantageous to domestic players and could negatively affect the national team.

APPI insists that they are not against having foreign players. However, they stress that without fair competition and a large enough league system, the fate of domestic players will be seriously affected.

"We deeply regret that a regulation that directly affects the careers of players was introduced without any exchange or discussion with the players themselves.

From a survey we conducted, the majority of players in the league expressed their opposition to this regulation. It will seriously reduce their playing time, as we currently have only one professional league,” quoted from the official statement from APPI.

The organization also made an alarming calculation: "If each club in the Super League makes full use of the 11 foreign player slots, 198 domestic players in the Super League will lose their jobs or have to play in the Championship (the new name of Liga 2).

And this means that 198 more Championship players will lose their jobs, or have to move down to play in amateur leagues in Liga 3," APPI's statement concluded.