"The AFC Competitions Committee has confirmed that Indonesian clubs shall not be included in the AFC Champions League 2008 as both the Indonesia League and national knockout competition do not finish before January 2008," the AFC said.
To be eligible, league and cup matches must be completed by the end of the year, with the draw for next year's competition, Asia's premier club tournament, scheduled for December 17.
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"We have accepted the decision as it is not a punishment."
Nugroho Besoes,
PSSI secretary general |
The Indonesian league season kicked off in February but was halted from May to August due to the Asian Cup, and again in September for Ramadan, causing a backlog of matches.
The Indonesia Football Association (PSSI) said it had accepted the decision.
"We have accepted the decision as it is not a punishment," Nugroho Besoes, PSSI secretary general, told AFP.
Besoes said that Indonesia had sent a team to negotiate with AFC management in Kuala Lumpur but to no avail.
"They said they cannot postpone it for the sake of other countries," said Besoes.
History of incompetence
It is not the first time that Indonesian clubs have fallen foul of the AFC.
In 2006, club sides Arema Malang and Persipura Jayapura were thrown out of the competition for failing to fill in their paperwork on time.
The latest expulsion deals another blow to football in Indonesia.
After making progress at the Asian Cup this year, the Indonesian national team failed to make the third round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, with their campaign culminating in an embarrassing 7-0 defeat to Syria.
They also slumped out of the ongoing Southeast Asian Games at the group stage.
Their hierarchy is also in disarray with Nurdin Halid, the disgraced head of the Indonesia Football Association, currently in jail after being convicted of graft earlier this year.
He has refused to step down, despite pressure from football's world governing body Fifa.