Indonesia's sports ministry has threatened to pull funding from the national football team following a historic 10-0 thrashing by Bahrain in a 2014 World Cup qualifier, an official said Wednesday. FIFA last week launched an investigation into the match, in which Bahrain needed to win by nine goals to have any hope of making the last round of Asian zone qualifiers, with allegations of match-fixing adding to Indonesian football's long list of woes.
"We're serious about it. We'll only pull funding from the national team, not the federation," sports ministry secretary Djoko Pekik told AFP. The Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) denied any foul play in the match in Manama last week, in which Indonesia's goalkeeper was red-carded in the first three minutes. FIFA's World Cup regulations state that countries must field their "best possible team in all matches of the competition" and "observe the principles of fair play". But the PSSI omitted some of the country's star players from the line-up against Bahrain as they had been playing in a domestic breakaway league deemed unofficial.
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