Sriwijaya Football Club or more popularly known as SFC is a perfect example of how a sports club can promote the city of its home base. SFC is a soccer club owned by PT Sriwijaya Optimis Mandiri (PT SOM) which derived its ownership from the Provincial Government of South Sumatra, Indonesia. The ownership was transferred to PT SOM because the current regulation in Indonesia regulates that the government fund is no longer allowed to be used to support a sport club. So, a sport club must live on its own fund. This regulation has caused many soccer clubs owned by local government in Indonesia to be inactive.

Prior to being taken over by South Sumatran Provincial Government, the club used to be owned by Eastern Jakarta’s owner and known as Persijatim. It then moved its home base to Solo (a city in Central Java) and known as Persijatim Solo FC. This club found a better home base when Provincial Government of South Sumatra showed its interest to take over its ownership in 2004. The provincial government of South Sumatra had a good reason to take over this soccer club because Palembang as the Capital of South Sumatra Province had just succeeded in becoming a host of a biannual national sport event, namely the 16th PON of 2004.

In preparing itself to become the host province of this multi-sport event, the provincial government of South Sumatra built many internationally standardized sport venues for each game to be contested during the 16th PON of 2004. One of these facilities was Stadion Gelora Sriwijaya (also known as Stadion Jakabaring), a huge soccer stadium which could hold up to 40,000 spectators. It is now one of the best soccer stadiums in Indonesia and has been a venue to many international soccer matches in Asia. One of the biggest events taken place in this stadium was the opening and closing ceremony of the 26th SEA GAMES (Southeast Asian Games) of 2011 in which Indonesia became the host of this biannual event. This stadium must be utilized and taken care of in order to maintain its quality and usefulness. The best way is to keep this stadium alive all year long is by having a soccer club which makes it as its homebase stadium. The acquisition of Persijatim Solo FC by the South Sumatra Provincial Government in 2005 has been the best solution to keep this stadium alive.

As it changed ownership, Persijatim Solo FC also changed its name into Sriwijaya Football Club and more popularly known as SFC. Sriwijaya or Srivijaya used to be the name of a powerful ancient kingdom whose power spanned from Sumatra to Africa. The capital of this kingdom was believed to be located in the present-day Palembang, the Capital of South Sumatra Province. This is the reason why the name Sriwijaya is so identical with Palembang and South Sumatra. This name is also identical with Grandeur, Glory, and Success. Many organizations, companies, and a university in South Sumatra adopted this name.

Does SFC succeed in bearing this name? This question can easily be answered with a big “YES”. It took only three years for SFC to gain it first trophy as the winner of Indonesian League (now known as ISL, Indonesian Super League) and in the same year (2007) it won another thropy called Piala Indonesia. This double winner status has amazed soccer fans throughout Indonesia and escalated the position of SFC as a soccer club in the nation. As the winner of the national league SFC was appointed to represent Indonesian soccer clubs to compete on international level of Asia in the Asian Champions League and Jakabaring Stadium became one of the soccer stadiums hosting this international competition. After winning its double titles in 2007 SFC succeeded in maintaining its positive records by winning the trophy of Piala Indonesia (Indonesian Cup) for three consecutive years: 2007, 2008-2009, and 2010. In 2011/2012 season, once again SFC won the title of the Champion of Indonesian Super League. Up to its 10th anniversary, SFC has won 10 trophies in total. It is an avarage of 1 trophy per year. Will anyone mind calling this soccer club a phenomenal club? Many professional soccer players in Indonesia call this club a champion club, because of its achievements since its bore the name Sriwijaya Football Club (SFC).