When a national football team is suffering from a string of poor performances, generally the coach, players, and the football federation of said country are the first to be blamed. But, there was a unique occurrence when the (former) Head of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI), Edy Rahmayadi, published a rather unusual statement, last November.

“It depends on the quality of the journalists. If the journalists are good, our national team will perform well,” said Edy when being interviewed by the media.

This response quickly sparked controversy, and Edy’s strange comment was even quoted by international media. Fox Sports Asia for example, stated Edy's comments were 'ridiculous'. However, Panditfootball.com, an online media focusing on football issues, had a unique way of responding.

“In relation with the shortcomings of the Indonesian National Team at the ASEAN Football Federation Cup 2018, we from Pandit Football Indonesia convey our sincerest apology to all Indonesian people. We apologise for failing to be a good media,” wrote Pandit in their ‘apology’ letter.

Through its letter, Pandit ‘apologised’ for questioning the reason for certain figures holding double roles and conflicts of interest within PSSI, publishing news on violence by players, supporters, and to referees, news on out-of-nowhere termination of the national team’s coaches, as well as publishing news about foreign football rather than only focusing on the national team’s in their website. An ‘apology’ letter that was short, concise, and hard-hitting. This letter immediately became viral in Indonesia.

“Mildan (Ammar Mildandaru Pratama) and I wrote that letter. It was truly spontaneous, because at the time, Edy’s statement came out of the blue, and we thought that we should make something of it. But how? Thus, we decided to write that letter,” said Pandit’s CEO, Abimanyu Bimantoro.

“People will get bored if Pandit got too serious. Too much data makes for heavy reading. That’s why we slipped in a little joke, which may have been a little sarcastic or satirical, but uniquely Pandit’s.”

Starting from Detik.com
According to Abimanyu, Panditfootball.com initially started with an offer from Detik.com to Andreas Marbun, Vetriciawizach Simbolon, Zen RS, and Yuda Asmara to fill contents for its Euro 2012 segment.

After the European football competition ended, this cooperation continued when Detik.com established a new segment, About the Game, filled with features and in-depth analyses about football. From there, the four writers decided to create their own website, Panditfootball.com.

Initially providing contents for About the Game segment, Pandit continued to grow and recruited a number of writers, which led to this sports portal standing on its own two feet, with independent content.

“From the beginning, Pandit has always emphasised on feature writing. So we rarely publish hard news. At a minimum, we show our stand in the issue brought up in each article,” said Abimanyu when asked about Pandit’s writing style.

“Simply put, let’s say there is news on a player transfer. We will not publish a certain player's move, its transfer fee, its contract duration, and so forth. Instead, we will insert additional information, such as how the player will fit in his new team, what this transfer means tactically, and so on.”

Starting from features and in-depth analyses, this character continues to be sustained by Pandit until today. These analyses even have a special place in the hearts of football fans in Indonesia.

“If we only rely on hard news, we will not be as quick and complete as large media. We will lose,” said Abimanyu, a devoted Liverpool fan. “But, if we add in-depth information, we can compete with them.”

Local content
In addition to its viral ‘apology’ letter, Pandit also gave more attention to local football contents. Despite not excluding international football contents, Abimanyu felt that local football has its own potential.

“Local content has its own market. Many people are die-hard fans of local football (contents),” continued Abimanyu.

“Publishing news about Persib (Bandung) will attract a lot of attention. Or, if we publish news on football in Medan, many Medanese will read it. So, local football contents cater to new readers, people who may not initially be Pandit’s followers.”

The abundance of local content also affected Pandit’s image often brought up in social media. One of the intriguing questions shown in social media is about Pandit’s support to a certain football club.

“Yes, we got a lot of questions on that (accused as supporters of Persib). Especially since Pandit is based in Bandung, so people would think that all of its employees are Persib supporters,” said Abimanyu, laughing.

“But we don’t just pay attention to one team. Admittedly, each writer has their own preference. I am a Liverpool fan, so I would write good things about them. But in Pandit, there is an ecosystem preventing us from getting too attached to our respective favourite team. So, we will be objective. If our favourite team is having a slump, we will write about it accordingly.”