More than 130 people died this month when a crowd rushed the field during a game. On Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and FIFA President Gianni Infantino met to discuss what happened. For the World Cup in 2022, they agreed to look at safety procedures in stadiums all over the country again.
World Cup 2022 | FIFA, Indonesia vow soccer safety upgrades after the miserable chaos
President Widodo met with Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, in Jakarta after the two organizations agreed to form a joint task force in the wake of the disaster at the stadium and before Indonesia hosted the Under-20 World Cup in 2019.
Infantino said reforming and changing football in Indonesia would be his top priority. He also said that he took the safety of soccer fans very seriously. The stampede at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in East Java on October 1 is thought to have been caused by police firing tear gas onto the field. This is a way to control crowds that FIFA says is illegal.
Last week, the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) said that Infantino would speak at a meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20) major economies in Bali in November. A government-appointed fact-finding team released a report last week saying that the “excessive and indiscriminate” use of tear gas was to blame for one of the world’s worst stadium disasters. This was in response to the growing public demand for answers.
