First Division starts on April 1st

Starting April 1st of 2001, the atmosphere of Indonesian national football will be even more exciting. When the Indonesian League VII Premier Division enters its second half, FAI (Football Association of Indonesia) will roll the competition of First Division. Twenty-three teams will compete in the division to fight for the two promotion places in the Premiership.

Just like last year, the teams in the First Division will be divided into four conferences: Western Conference, Central Conference I, Central Conference II, and Eastern Conference. Each conference will have six teams, except Central Conference I, which will have only five.

Though each conference will play in full-competition system, there is quite a difference among the four conferences. Central Conferences I and II will play the competition using home-and-away system, while the matches in Eastern and Western Conferences will be played in two cities in their respective conference.

For Eastern Conference, the two cities are Manokwari (first half of the season) and Tondano, Minahasa, North Sulawesi (second half. For Western Conference, the two cities are Cilegon, West Java (first half) and Denpasar, Bali (second half).

Why only played in two cities for the two conferences?

"This is mainly done to lessen the transport costs for the teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences. Because of the large area of our country, the costs of air transport are really heavy, and this is very significant in the Eastern Conference where we don't get 50% discounts from Garuda Indonesia Airlines, because the airline doesn't travel there," said Eddi Elison, FAI Public Relations Officer.

For example, Eddi gave the case example of PSSB Bireuen Aceh. Located in the westernmost province in Indonesia, PSSB Bireuen will have to pay a very high air transport cost should they visit Persikaba Badung of Bali, located in the middle of Indonesia, in a home-and-away system. And vice versa to Persikaba Badung.

Furthermore, Eddi said, this is done at the requests of the teams.

This year, First Division will be fiercer than ever, because there are only two teams to be promoted. The top two teams of each conference will advance to the next round, where they'll be put into two separate groups. The winners and runners-up of each group will then advance to the next round, where they'll be put in one group.

Here, there won't be semifinals and finals of First Division anymore, but they'll each play a half-competition system, meaning that every team will match up against the other three teams in the group. This way, "It'll be more competitive, and to make sure that no team will advance just out of luck," said Iswadi Idris, FAI Director of Competition.

As for the relegation system, the bottom-placed teams of each conference will have to play against the third- and fouth-ranked teams from the Second Division in a play-off round.

"The best two teams from the play-offs will get the tickets for next season's First Division, along with the best two teams from the Second Division who get instant promotion tickets, without having to go through play-off anymore," said Iswadi Idris.

The following are the teams and their conferences that will compete in the First Division:

from various sources