For PSBS Biak, the return to Indonesia’s second tier in the 2026/2027 season is already proving to be a test that extends well beyond what happens on the football pitch. The Papua club faces questions over outstanding player wages, club licensing requirements, and the absence of a home stadium in Biak, challenges that could affect both its competitive prospects and its effort to rebuild after relegation from Indonesia’s top flight.
The situation has become particularly urgent because the 2026/2027 Championship, commonly known as Liga 2, is scheduled to begin on September 11. PT Liga Utama Indonesia has warned that PSBS could start the campaign with a one-point deduction if it cannot provide a qualifying home base. The club is reportedly preparing to use Gelora Joko Samudro Stadium in Gresik, East Java, rather than its traditional home in Biak.
At the same time, the Association of Indonesian Professional Footballers, or APPI, has identified PSBS among clubs with unresolved salary obligations. APPI said the rights of PSBS players had still not been fully settled as of late August, adding another layer of uncertainty before the new campaign begins.
The coming season is therefore about more than promotion for PSBS, a club that represents Biak and carries the identity of Papua into the national competition. It is about restoring institutional stability.
From Promotion Success to Relegation
PSBS Biak’s recent trajectory has been remarkably rapid.
The club reached Indonesia’s top division after winning the 2023/2024 Liga 2 season. Its promotion represented one of the significant recent achievements for football in Papua, giving Biak a presence on the country’s biggest domestic football stage.
But the transition proved difficult.
During the 2025/2026 Super League season, PSBS struggled for consistency and eventually finished among the relegated teams. The club now returns to the Championship alongside Persis Solo and Semen Padang, creating a very different challenge from the one it faced after promotion.
The decline was not simply a matter of results.
Reports during the final months of the previous season highlighted growing concerns over salary payments and internal management. In April, several PSBS players publicly raised concerns about outstanding wages through an open letter addressed to the Indonesian League (I-League), Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI), and other stakeholders.
The controversy drew a response from Youth and Sports Minister and PSSI chairman Erick Thohir, who said the competition organizer had mechanisms to deal with such disputes and that PSSI had the National Dispute Resolution Chamber, or NDRC, as a legal mechanism for football-related employment disputes.
The issue nevertheless remained unresolved for longer than expected.
That history now follows PSBS into the new season.
Salary Arrears Become a Major Concern
The most sensitive issue is the welfare of the players themselves.
Professional football depends on a basic contractual relationship. Players perform on the field, while clubs are expected to fulfill their financial obligations. When that relationship breaks down, the consequences can spread quickly through the dressing room.
APPI’s latest data illustrates that PSBS is not an isolated case.
As of August 31, APPI said 28 clubs across Indonesia’s professional and lower divisions had outstanding salary cases involving 303 players, with total obligations reaching approximately Rp14.8 billion. The data includes cases reported to APPI as well as decisions from the NDRC that had not yet been implemented.
However, APPI specifically highlighted PSBS Biak because its salary dispute had already emerged during the previous Super League campaign.
According to APPI Legal Officer Mohammad Agus Riza Hufaida, the problem involving PSBS had appeared around four months before the end of the previous season, yet the players’ outstanding rights had not been fully settled by the end of August.
That creates an important sporting question.
A team preparing for a new campaign needs players who can focus on training, tactics, and competition. Financial uncertainty can instead create distractions, weaken morale, and make it harder for management to build a stable squad.
It also raises a broader question about the professionalization of Indonesian football. APPI has said that clubs that don’t meet their player obligations should face harsher penalties through licensing and competition rules. The association has called for a stricter approach to financial compliance, particularly if Indonesian football wants to improve its international standards.
For PSBS, resolving the outstanding obligations is therefore not simply an administrative exercise. It is part of rebuilding credibility.
Four of Five Licensing Areas Still a Problem
The financial issue closely connects with another major obstacle: club licensing.
According to I.League General Manager Budiman Dalimunthe, Championship and Super League clubs are now subject to stricter requirements aligned with Asian Football Confederation, or AFC, standards.
Budiman said clubs must meet five licensing aspects required by PSSI. In the case of PSBS, he said four of those five aspects had not yet been fulfilled at the time of the assessment. He also identified financial capacity, including the requirement for clubs to provide capital for deposits, as one of the important elements.
This is significant because modern professional football is increasingly governed by standards that extend beyond the playing field.
A club is expected to demonstrate that it has the financial capacity to complete a season, suitable infrastructure, proper administration, and the organizational systems necessary to protect players and supporters.
For Indonesian football, stricter licensing can be viewed as part of the broader effort to make clubs more sustainable.
For PSBS, however, the timing could hardly be more difficult.
The club is trying to recover from relegation while simultaneously dealing with the consequences of the previous season. The potential point deduction adds another sporting disadvantage to an already complicated rebuilding process.
The Home Stadium Problem
Then there is the issue of geography.
For football clubs, home advantage is more than a slogan. Familiar surroundings, local supporters, travel routines, and knowledge of playing conditions can influence the atmosphere surrounding a match.
PSBS Biak is now facing a season in which its home matches will be played far from Biak.
The I-League said PSBS was at risk of starting the championship with minus one point because it had not been able to provide a home stadium in its domicile. The club was reported to be planning to use Gelora Joko Samudro Stadium in Gresik, East Java, for the 2026/2027 competition after using Maguwoharjo Stadium in Sleman, Yogyakarta, for the 2025/2026 one.
The stadium has since appeared as the venue for PSBS home fixtures in the official competition schedule, confirming the practical reality of the club’s temporary relocation. An I-League fixture lists PSBS against Deltras FC at Gelora Joko Samudro on September 13.
This arrangement is not unique to Indonesian football. Clubs sometimes move temporarily because their stadiums are unavailable or fail competition requirements. Semen Padang, for example, selected a stadium outside Padang after its traditional home was scheduled for renovation, while also considering the financial implications of playing more matches in Java.
For PSBS, however, the distance is particularly meaningful.
Biak is thousands of kilometers from Java. Moving the team’s operational base to Gresik may provide a stadium that meets competition requirements, but it also separates the club from the community that forms the emotional core of its identity.
A Papua Club Playing Away From Papua
This is where PSBS’s sporting problem becomes a wider Papua story.
Football has long provided Papua with a visible presence in Indonesia’s national sporting landscape. Clubs such as PSBS Biak, Persipura Jayapura, and Persewar Waropen have helped create a pathway through which Papuan players can compete at the national level.
When a Papua-based club plays its home matches outside Papua, that connection becomes more complicated.
The club can still represent Biak, but the match-day experience changes. Local supporters cannot attend as easily. Young players in the region lose the opportunity to watch a professional team regularly. Local businesses that might benefit from match-day activity also lose some of that economic opportunity.
At the same time, operating in Java could offer practical advantages, particularly in logistics and access to football infrastructure.
The challenge for PSBS management is therefore to maintain its connection with Biak while operating temporarily in another part of Indonesia.
This could include stronger digital engagement with supporters, youth development activities in Papua, and regular community programs that keep the club connected to its home region even when competitive matches are played elsewhere.
What the Club Can Learn From Its Difficult Season
The former club leadership has reportedly linked PSBS’s decline to internal problems that emerged during the previous campaign. Public reporting has also connected the club’s struggles to management and financial difficulties.
The exact causes should be assessed carefully rather than reduced to a single explanation. Relegation is usually the product of several factors, including squad quality, coaching, injuries, finances, management decisions, and results.
What is clearer is that PSBS cannot afford to repeat the same instability.
The new Championship season provides an opportunity to rebuild the club on stronger foundations.
That rebuilding should begin with financial transparency. Players need clarity about outstanding payments and future contracts. Management needs a realistic budget. The club needs to meet licensing requirements before competition pressure intensifies.
Only after those foundations are secure can sporting ambitions become sustainable.
The Road Back to the Top Flight
PSBS’s immediate objective will naturally be to compete strongly in the Championship and eventually return to the Super League.
But promotion should not become the only measure of success.
A rapid return to the top division without solving underlying financial and administrative problems could simply reproduce the same cycle. A more sustainable approach would be to strengthen the club’s financial management, develop younger Papuan players, establish a reliable scouting system, and build a professional organizational structure.
The experience of the previous two seasons offers a clear lesson: promotion can happen quickly, but establishing a sustainable top-flight club takes much longer.
For Papua, this distinction matters.
A financially healthy PSBS could become an important platform for local talent and an economic asset for Biak. It could provide young footballers with a pathway to national competition while helping strengthen the province’s sporting identity.
Stronger Rules Can Help Indonesian Football
The PSBS case also comes at a time when Indonesian football is trying to improve its professional standards.
I.League’s stricter licensing requirements are part of that process. Budiman said the competition’s regulations were being tightened in line with AFC standards with the aim of creating a healthier and more professional football ecosystem.
APPI’s criticism of unresolved salary disputes points to the other side of the same reform.
Professional standards mean little if players are not paid according to their contracts.
The challenge for the PSSI and the I-League is to enforce regulations consistently while giving clubs a clear pathway to correct deficiencies before sanctions become decisive. For clubs, the lesson is equally straightforward: financial planning and player welfare must be treated as central components of sporting performance.
In this context, PSBS Biak’s difficulties could become a useful case study for the broader modernization of Indonesian football.
A Season That Could Define PSBS Biak
The coming championship campaign will test PSBS on several fronts at once.
The club must address outstanding player payments, complete the required licensing standards, operate from a temporary home in Gresik, and rebuild its sporting competitiveness after relegation.
None of those tasks is easy individually. Together, they create one of the most demanding periods in the club’s recent history.
Yet there is also an opportunity.
PSBS has already demonstrated that a club from Papua can rise to the highest level of Indonesian football. Its Liga 2 championship in 2023/2024 showed that the potential exists.
The next challenge is to transform that sporting potential into a sustainable institution.
Conclusion
PSBS Biak’s return to the Championship in 2026/2027 should be viewed as a rebuilding season as much as a promotion campaign.
The potential minus-one starting point, concerns over club licensing, and the move to Gelora Joko Samudro in Gresik have created immediate obstacles. More importantly, the unresolved player salary issue has exposed the financial vulnerability that can undermine a football project from within. I.League has made clear that the club must meet its licensing obligations, while APPI continues to press for stronger protection of players’ contractual rights.
For PSBS, the order of importance should be clear: first, stabilize the club; second, compete; and third, work toward promotion from a stronger base.
For Indonesian football, the episode offers a broader lesson. Improving the quality of the league is not only about better stadiums, bigger audiences, or more competitive matches. It also requires financially responsible clubs, enforceable contracts, credible licensing, and protection for the people who make the sport possible.
And for Biak, a successful PSBS rebuild would mean more than a football result. It would restore a national sporting platform for Papua while demonstrating that a club from the country’s easternmost regions can compete nationally through professional management, financial discipline, and long-term planning.
The road back to the top flight will be difficult. But if PSBS can use this difficult moment to rebuild properly, the season ahead could eventually become the foundation for a stronger and more sustainable future.