The Southeast Asian (SEA) Games is the time for nations from all over Southeast Asia to come together and celebrate our unity. However, in light of recent events, many people are concerned over the upcoming matches.
Malaysia’s national football coach, Ong Kim Swee, recently told all football fans to behave themselves and not get the controversy surrounding the misprint of the Indonesian flag to put a damper on Saturday’s Malaysia vs. Indonesia semi-final football match. He stated at a pre-match press conference today (25th August),
“Football is a sport and fans will be inside the Shah Alam Stadium to watch a good match. I urge the fans, both from Malaysia and Indonesia, to control their emotions and only support their respective teams.”
Source: NST
“I hope the fans will not bring up other issues outside football… just enjoy the game.”
Bima Sakti, team Indonesia’s assistant coach also expressed the same sentiment, saying,
“We do not want any incident that could affect both teams. Indonesian and Malaysian fans should act like brothers and just cheer for their teams.”
“This is only football. Our fans are excited for their team, but they should only focus on motivating the team.”
This statement comes after the incident that occurred after the Malaysia vs. Myanmar football match on Monday (21st August), where two Myanmar supporters were brutally beaten up by a group of Malaysian supporters. Luckily, they were helped by another group of kind Malaysians soon after that and are now recovering.
Source: New Straits Times
This year’s SEA Games came under scrutiny when pictures of a misprint in the official booklet became viral, where the Indonesian flag was printed upside down. Understandably, Indonesians were offended by the misprint, thinking it was disrespectful.
The incident even caused a group of Indonesians to hack a number of Malaysian websites, showing the flag misprint with the words “my national flag is not a toy!” on the affected websites.
The highly-anticipated match will be held tomorrow (26th August) at Shah Alam stadium, with around 70,000 tickets allocated to fans, 10,000 of which are for Indonesian supporters.
We hope everyone remains civil and preserves the spirit of good sportsmanship during the remainder of these games. Let’s not get carried away!
Also read: Police Looking for Malaysians Who Beat Up Myanmar Supporters at SEA Games Football Match
