Recently, PSSI Secretary-General Yunus Nusi said that he had exchanged views with the President of the Indonesian Olympic Committee (NOC) to verify information from relevant organizations.
Up to now, PSSI has not received any official documents from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) or the Asian Olympic Council (OCA) regarding the application of special criteria for teams that have participated in the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals.
Mr. Yunus Nusi said that PSSI has only grasped information through the media and statements from some federations in the region. Therefore, he has requested NOC Indonesia to request official confirmation to have a basis for adjusting the preparation plan for ASIAD.
PSSI leaders emphasized that if there is a decision from management agencies, information must be sent to the Olympic Committee of each member country.
According to some sources, AFC and OCA are considering applying a mechanism to select teams for ASIAD based on achievements at the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals. If this regulation is approved, teams that have participated in the 2026 AFC U23 Championship finals will be specially admitted to ASIAD.
For Southeast Asia, only U23 Vietnam and U23 Thailand meet this condition, while U23 Indonesia did not pass the qualifiers.
At the 2026 AFC U23 Championship qualifiers, the archipelago team ranked second in Group J and did not qualify for the next round. This makes their chances of participating in ASIAD 20 dependent on the final decision of AFC and OCA.
The Chairman of the Indonesian National Team Committee, Mr. Sumardji, also affirmed that the federation has not received an official notification of being eliminated from ASIAD. He said that PSSI is coordinating with the foreign affairs department and NOC to update information, and emphasized that there is still time before the congress to handle this issue.
ASIAD 2026 is scheduled to be held from September 19 to October 4 in Nagoya, Japan. At the most recent Games, Indonesia stopped in the round of 16 after losing to Uzbekistan in extra time.
