The Indonesian senior football team is interested in roping in the former Real Madrid and Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, as their head coach. The experienced Portuguese manager is, however, widely rumoured to succeed Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal at Old Trafford next season.
Indonesia, currently ranked 185 in the world by FIFA, are without a coach at the moment. They were banned from participating in any football competition in May last year by FIFA, after they cited that there was too much government interference in the sport. As a result, not only did the Indonesian Super League come to a halt but the national team could also not participate in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers or the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers.
The ban may have not been lifted as yet, but newly-elected FIFA President Gianni Infantino had discussed lifting the football ban on the nation during a meeting in Zurich last month.
Mourinho, meanwhile, is also without a club after he was sacked from Chelsea in December 2015. Heavily rumoured to join Manchester United in the weeks to come, the Portuguese manager had earlier said that he expected to be back in a coaching role with the start of the new football season.
"This plan [to bring in Mourinho] has been discussed with President Joko Widodo and the Chairman of the Indonesian Olympics Committee, Erick Thohir, even though this won't be easy," the Youth and sports minister of Indonesia, Imam Nahrawi, was quoted as saying by British publication Metro on Tuesday.
"Our national team head coach must be a foreigner, accompanied with our local coaches as his assistant," he continued. "When I asked Erick, Mourinho's salary is about Rp250 billion [equivalent to £13million or €16.5million] per year."
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has also discussed the possibility of roping in current Chelsea interim manager Guus Hiddink, if they are totally unsuccessful in signing Jose Mourinho, reported Reuters.
[1 lakh = 100,000 | 1 crore = 10 million | 100 crore = 1 billion]
