Jakarta - President Director of PT Liga Indonesia Baru (LIB) Ferry Paulus confirmed that next season's Indonesian League 3, which this season is called the Nusantara League, will be participated by 24 clubs.
The number of participants increased by eight clubs from the previous 16 clubs that participated this season. This season, the 16 clubs consist of six clubs from League 2 2023/2024 and 10 clubs from League 3 2023/2024.
"What is certain is that for next season there will be 24 teams," said Ferry when met by media crew after the Nusantara League final match between Tornado FC and Sumut United at the Indomilk Arena Stadium, Tangerang Regency, Banten, Thursday.
Currently, Ferry can only reveal the number of participants in League 3 next season, while for the competition format and player regulations, he said he was still waiting for direction from PSSI.
"We still don't understand the format because PSSI has not provided any direction for the future," he said.
This season, Liga Nusantara started the league with a preliminary round divided into two regions, namely Solo, Central Java and Denpasar, Bali, using a double round robin system.
After the preliminary round is over, the competition stage enters the relegation playoff round and then the last six round with a home-away format.
For player regulations, this season the Nusantara League emphasizes that each club registers 10 senior players, while the rest are U-20 and U-22 players. Only five senior players are allowed in the first eleven and the rest are filled by players from the U-20 and U-22 age groups.
Furthermore, commenting on the progress of the Nusnatara League competition this season, Ferry admitted that he was quite satisfied.
"Yes, of course the implementation went smoothly, although there were some ripples but it was not too worrying, compared to previous seasons. Maybe this is the best League 3," he concluded.
Three Liga Nusantara clubs got promotion tickets to Liga 2 Indonesia.