APPI First Aid 2500

Indonesian player union launches first aid campaign for players

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APPI First Aid 2500
The player association of Indonesia is offering professional footballers in the country a first aid course.

Several well-known players are involved in the project, which also includes an instructional video on how to perform resuscitation.

“We had several incidents with players collapsing on the pitch because of a sudden cardiac arrest,” APPI’s Deputy General Manager Gotcha Michel told FIFPRO. The most recent incident was the death of former national team player Ricky Yacobi, who passed away last year after collapsing during a friendly match with former internationals.

The goal of APPI’s first-aid campaign is twofold:

  1. to educate professional footballers and team officials about performing first aid skills properly
  2. to raise awareness among professional footballers about the importance of mastering these first aid skills.

APPI invoked the cooperation of three national team players and an actor for its video: Andritany Ardhiyasa (captain of Persija Jakarta), Achmad Jufriyanto (Persib Bandung), Basia Putri (women’s national team) and Isa Bajaj (comedian and well-known supporter of Persebaya).

Michel: “With the inclusion of Andritany, Jufriyanto and Putri, we involve popular persons who are linked with the three biggest teams. These teams have enormous fanbases which could help us with raising as much awareness for our campaign as possible.”

The project, which is partially funded through a FIFPRO Asia fund, kicked-off in October. Since, APPI already educated more than 300 players, and the union has scheduled more workshops until April 2022, aiming to reach up to 1,000 professional footballers in Indonesia’s two top divisions (Liga 1 and Liga 2).

“These first aid skills were not very common in Indonesia, especially among footballer,” said Michel. “We received a lot of positive feedback from players, supporters, clubs and owners, and we noticed that many players have been sharing our campaign on their social media accounts.”