Athletes’ Security a Concern for Indonesian Sports

The majority of national athletes are not yet financially well-off, with some living in desperate conditions due to the lack of a state pension fund and health security scheme.

KOMPAS/RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Weightlifting athlete, Eko Yuli Irawan, performs a lift while competing in the men\'s 62 kilograms number at the 2018 Asian Games at the Jakarta International Expo, Jakarta, Tuesday (21/8/2018). Life after retirement as an athlete is a challenge for Indonesian athletes, including Eko Yuli.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — In the wake of lavish bonuses and prizes worth billions of rupiah given by the government and private sector to the Olympic and Paralympic medalists at Tokyo 2020, many sportspeople in the country are still finding it hard to feel secure.

Cash bonuses, which come only when the athletes excel, are short-lived for some as they are unable to guarantee their future financial security after they retire as an athlete.

Even if they have represented their province at national events or the country at international events, the lives of some athletes – both active and in retirement – are arguably no better than those of laborers.

They have to struggle outside the competition arena to find other sources of income because of the lack of financial support for their livelihood, as experienced by Adriansyah Apandi.

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The Jakarta athlete has to split his time between his routine training as a hammer thrower and being a contract teacher.

He is among the province’s high-achieving athletes by winning a silver and gold at the National Games (PON), which earned him Rp 280 million in cash bonuses from the local government.

The Jakarta sports authorities have augmented the athletes’ monthly stipend from Rp 4 million to Rp 8 million starting this year, but he sees it as not enough to secure their livelihood and the future.

The additional monthly income of Rp 2.5 million from his teaching side job has added to his income to make ends meet in Jakarta and support his wife and children in East Kalimantan.

"If you do not excel, such as not passing qualifications for the PON, you are immediately crossed out. If we had a fixed income, we could definitely focus more on training and achievement," Adriansyah said when interviewed early this month.

A number of former athletes with international achievements still had to do odd jobs after retiring as experienced by the late Tati Sumirah, hailed as one of the country’s badminton legends for her part in the Indonesian Uber Cup triumph in 1975.

Kompas

A hammer throwing athlete from West Sumatra, Rafika Putra, took part in the 2019 Athletics National Championship at Pakansari Stadium, Bogor, Monday (5/8/2019). The majority of athletes from regions like Rafika really hope to be appointed as state civil servants to ensure their welfare in old age.

However, several years after the 1975 Uber Cup, she had to work as a pharmacy cashier and library staff member at a lubricating oil company in Jakarta. Her face was immortalized on electronic payment cards during the 2018 Asian Games.

The fallen sports star was often silent and sickly before she died in February 2020.

The cheers of the audience, as she and the team were celebrating Indonesia’s first Uber Cup, had vividly echoed in her mind before it died out quietly. “I rarely watch badminton. It makes me sad," she said in 2018.

Bonuses do not provide security for athletes, according to Richard Sam Bera, a former national swimmer and Olympian.

“Bonuses are just an [instant] reward for an achievement, they do not improve the athletes’ security,” he said.

He added that in addition to rewarding the athletes for their achievements, their well-being between competing should also be a concern.

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He also suggested the government provide the athletes’ post-play welfare security scheme.

Djoko Pekik Irianto, a professor in sports science at Yogyakarta State University, sees an urgency for regulations on athlete pension funds, saying that they deserve it for having sacrificed their prime years of youth for the sake of the country.

"The ongoing paradigm of pension funds is that you have to [become] a civil servant to have one as ruled in the regulations. For athletes, we need to formulate a legal basis," Djoko said.

Having the financial security of a pension fund as in other professions is something the majority of the country’s sportspeople yearn for, be they active or retired, as a recent survey by Kompas R&D found.

KOMPAS/YUNIADHI AGUNG

Zulham Zamrun, an athlete who once represented the Indonesian national football team, underwent physiotherapy to recover from a ligament injury while defending Persib Bandung in 2016. Injuries and the absence of insurance from the club are a scourge for professional football players in the country.

The survey featured 330 respondents from 34 provinces from 1 to 10 September 2021. The majority of the respondents (54.2 percent) claimed they were not financially well off.

As many as 84.2 percent of active athlete respondents said they did not have financial insurance for their retirement. Among retired athletes, the number was still very high, at 75.2 percent.

Even no less deploring was that 35.2 percent of the respondents admitted they did not have health insurance, which may appear a mockery to the government\'s current campaign over health insurance for citizens.

There are still many players who have not been covered by insurance by the club which should actually be the patron of the athletes.

Many former achieving athletes ended up in miserable lives, some having been forced to sell their possessions to cover the cost of treatment for their injury or for family members’ illness, as in the case of former national football player Muhammad Nasuha and former SEA Games gold-winning rower Leni Haini.

Indonesian Professional Footballers Association chairman Firman Utina called for the clubs’ concern about the athletes’ welfare.

"There are still many players who have not been covered by insurance by the club which should actually be the patron of the athletes," he said, adding that only about 20 percent of 42 Indonesian football clubs in League 1 and 2 provided insurance.

Long-term rewards

In other countries, the protection of athletes, in terms of their welfare, has become a necessity in the hope to create a conducive climate in the pursuit of achievement.

South Korea provides pension funds for former excelling athletes with the benchmark of the monthly sum being the Olympics, Asian Games and world championships as well as what they refer to as the athletes’ accumulative credit score.

Malaysia has taken a similar step to the National Sports Committee (NSC) currently proposing to expand the reach of pension funds for national athletes, not exclusively for Olympic medal winners.

A trust fund scheme involving private companies has been set up to help reduce the budget burden on the government, as the UK also does.

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Athlete welfare issues have reached the House with Hetifah Sjaifudian, deputy chairperson of Commission X stating that they have made it a priority in the discussion of the revision of Law No. 3/2005 concerning the national sports system.

Among the proposed provisions, she said, was about the welfare of athletes, their families, health insurance and pension fund.

Youth and Sports Minister Zainudin Amali pointed out the need for a new paradigm that the sports budget was also an investment to improve the quality of human resources. (KEL/DRI/SAN/NDU/YOG/JON)

This article was translated by Musthofid.