Jakarta (AFP) - Former Inter Milan owner Erick Thohir was named Indonesia's football association chief on Thursday, several months after one of the worst stadium disasters in the sport's history.
The 52-year-old is Indonesia's minister of state-owned enterprises and one of the most influential figures in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
He ran President Joko Widodo's 2019 re-election campaign, serves as Indonesian Olympic Committee chief and once owned Inter Milan and DC United.His brother Garibaldi is one of Indonesia's youngest billionaires.
He secured the majority of votes at a football association meeting and will hold a press conference with FIFA representatives in the coming days to address match-fixing in Indonesia.
"Clean football should be our main goal, we can't even talk about achievement if we don't have clean football and this is not an easy thing to achieve," Thohir told reporters on Thursday.
The sport and media tycoon replaces under-fire chairman Mochamad Iriawan four months after 135 people were killed in a stadium stampede in East Java when police responded to a pitch invasion by firing tear gas into stands packed with fans.
Five people including three police officers are on trial for their role in the tragedy.
An investigation team set up after the disaster called for Iriawan, the former Jakarta police chief, to step down but he refused and served the rest of his term.
He was criticised by Indonesians after the football association, known as PSSI, posted images of him laughing and high-fiving FIFA chief Gianni Infantino during an impromptu football match in Jakarta shortly after the disaster.
