South Korea coach Shin Tae-yong has been let go after four years as Indonesia's football boss eyes World Cup qualification.
Indonesia has sacked its men's football coach Shin Tae-yong with the country's football chief saying the team needs stronger leadership as they fight for a place at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“We need a leadership that implements strategies as agreed with the players, communicates better, and implements better programs for our national team,” said Erick Thohir, who heads the Association Indonesian Football (PSSI), at a press conference on Monday.
Thohir said that Shin's work with the team “has come to an end” and that a replacement, whom he declined to name, would arrive in Indonesia on January 11.
The Southeast Asian nation has tens of millions of passionate football fans, but Indonesia's only appearance for the World Cup came during the reign of the Netherlands in 1938 and the rare a country threatened to return from independence in 1945.
Indonesia are third in their World Cup group after six of 10 games, one point behind Australia in the battle for the automatic second place in the finals.
If they finish third or fourth, they could still reach the finals in North America through further rounds of qualification and inter-regional play-offs.
Thohir, who said he had interviewed three candidates to replace Shin on a recent trip to Europe, was not concerned that a change of coaches in the middle of the campaign would disrupt the team.
“It's normal. Many countries change coaches during World Cup qualifiers,” he said.
“This is something we have been discussing for several months, but I think the time is right, because we still have two and a half months to prepare for the next games .
“We still have four games and we want to get as many points as possible.”
South Korea's Shin took over as coach in 2019 and Thohir said he would be compensated for the remainder of his contract, which runs until 2027.
Shin benefited from PSSI's policy to attract members of the Indonesian diaspora, mostly born in the Netherlands, to play for the national team.
Indonesia was the only Southeast Asian country to reach the third round of qualifiers and last November they stunned regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia 2-0 in Jakarta.
