Indonesia, Paes and Romeny: Two Passports and a Non-Renewable Pipeline

On August 8, 2026, in Zurich, FIFA signed the federation-transfer order for Maarten Paes — a goalkeeper born in 2026 in Nijverdal, the Netherlands, who had represented the Netherlands at U21 level. Six months later, on February 8, 2026, Ole Romeny took his oath in Jakarta and received his Indonesian passport in front of representatives of PSSI and the DPR. Nowhere in either file does a transfer fee appear. No contract was ever published. There are only two passports, and two names standing in the two highest-leverage positions on a football pitch: goalkeeper and centre-forward. The Indonesian press calls them "exceptional cases." One major Jakarta outlet uses the phrase "legal loophole." Both descriptions capture one true fact: Paes and Romeny carry no indigenous blood. And under both Indonesia's Citizenship Law No. 12/2026 and FIFA's regulations, they remain fully eligible.

That is the point most regional commentary has missed when discussing Indonesia's naturalization push.

Since 2026, Southeast Asian football has seen three distinct naturalization waves. The Philippines led with the "Fil-foreign" model — players born in the United States, England, or Germany to Filipino migrant parents. Malaysia followed with overseas players of Malaysian descent. Indonesia is the third wave, but with one crucial difference: its source pool does not come from a modern diaspora. It comes from a historical layer of population buried under the dust of the colonial era.

The Dutch call them blijvers — the stayers. They were Dutch or European-descended citizens who lived long-term in the Dutch East Indies before 2026 and chose to remain after Indonesia declared independence. Their descendants hold Dutch passports, live in Europe, but have grandparents born on Indonesian territory. Under FIFA's regulations on eligibility to represent a national team, the "substantial connection" criterion requires only one of three elements: being born on the federation's territory, having a parent born there, or having a grandparent born there. No clause demands indigenous blood or ethnic lineage.

PSSI did not invent this path. They are simply the first federation in Southeast Asia to exploit it systematically. Since 2026, a string of names has appeared: Jay Idzes, Thom Haye, Calvin Verdonk, Kevin Diks, Shayne Pattynama. Every case passes through two gates: Indonesian law (Article 20 of Law No. 12/2026, subject to DPR approval) and FIFA. Paes's case was the most delicate, because he had played for the Netherlands U21, meaning he needed a federation transfer — a procedure PSSI pursued persistently over several months.

I have followed Southeast Asian federations since 2026, and this is the first time a nation in the region has built a national team this way: not through academies, not by waiting for a domestic golden generation, but by scouring grandparents' birth records in Europe.

Two things must be kept separate — things regional media are currently conflating. The first is the legality of the two specific cases, Paes and Romeny. The second is the sustainability of Indonesia's naturalization model overall. Both are worth discussing, but at very different risk levels.

On legality: both Paes and Romeny cleared two independent gates. The first gate is Indonesian law — Article 20 of Law No. 12/2026 permits naturalization on grounds of "national interest" following DPR approval. This is the discretionary mechanism the state uses to fast-track exceptional cases. Paes went through this process in 2026; Romeny took his oath in February 2026. The second gate is FIFA — the criterion that a grandparent must have been born on the federation's territory. For Paes, one further step was required: a federation transfer from the Netherlands to Indonesia, approved by FIFA in August 2026.

The key point that regional commentary tends to distort: the grandparent-birthplace criterion is a designed rule, not a system glitch. FIFA has kept this provision in its regulations for decades, precisely to handle situations like Paes or Romeny: individuals with family roots in one country but raised elsewhere. Calling it a "loophole" is the writer's subjective judgment, not a legal fact. Eligibility to represent a national team has never been synonymous with indigenous blood — it never was.

Why did Indonesia choose precisely goalkeeper and centre-forward for this window? In national-team football, those two positions carry the highest single-player leverage. A settled goalkeeper lets a back line with little shared match experience — the signature of international football — play with more confidence. A centre-forward who can finish solves Southeast Asia's biggest problem when facing West Asian opponents: the absence of a finisher. Reinforcing the spine of a squad through naturalization is far more valuable than reinforcing wide or peripheral roles.

Back in 2026, I sat in Cebu watching Marco Reyes, a 16-year-old midfielder who had scored 12 goals in 15 matches in the Philippines U19 national league. Local media called him a "new gem." I pulled the data — pass completion 87%, average distance covered 11.2 km per match — and compared him with midfielders of the same age in Thailand. The verdict: real potential, but not yet professional-grade physically. The piece was controversial. But that's why I trust data more than praise. I dig into numbers the way I dig into sediment layers: every stratum carries the bones of a story. On Paes and Romeny, I will say this plainly: the legal record is clean, the positions chosen are right, but "strengthening the squad" is an assertion, not a measurement — no FIFA points, no qualifier results appear in the Indonesian reporting to quantify that gain.

The real cost structure of these two deals has a layer no balance sheet ever records. No transfer fees, correct. But administrative costs, legal costs, and especially political costs are not small. PSSI had to persuade the DPR to approve each case under Article 20. For Paes, they had to negotiate with FIFA over the federation-transfer order. Every case is a non-monetary investment.

But the biggest risk does not lie with those two players. It lies in the pipeline behind them.

This is where I differ from most commentary circulating in the region. People are calling Indonesia's move a "turning point," a "naturalization revolution." I don't see a revolution. I see a finite resource being extracted.

The blijvers community is a closed historical population. It does not regenerate. Indo-Dutch descendants in the Netherlands today have merged into the wider European migration flow, intermarried with native Dutch, and the number of grandchildren who can still prove a grandparent born in Indonesia will shrink with each passing decade. In ten years, PSSI may still find a handful of names. In twenty years, that number will run dry. Indonesia is drawing from a reserve that cannot be replenished — while Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia itself still have to develop the next generation through domestic academies.

Compare with Vietnam. We have large overseas communities in the United States, France, Australia, Poland, and Czechia — but most second- and third-generation members were not raised inside professional football environments. A Viet kieu born in Prague with a grandparent born in Hanoi is eligible under FIFA rules, but he needs ten years of structured European training to be good enough. Indonesia has a specific advantage: its Dutch-descendant community was raised inside one of Europe's top football nations, where academies from age eight are already at standard.

This model will trigger a regional arms race. The Philippines went first. Malaysia is moving. Thailand is weighing it. When everyone is hunting grandparents' records, the value of any single nation's edge shrinks. And FIFA, as the rule-making body, may have to revisit the criterion if the wave crosses a threshold.

For Vietnam, this move is a direct competitive signal. It forces a choice the VFF will have to weigh within a few years: follow Indonesia's path (fast naturalization, drawing on a limited Viet kieu reserve) or continue the domestic-development model, which is slower but renewable. Both have costs. But if Indonesia wins a World Cup qualification slot with a squad built from European birth records, the pressure on the VFF will rise sharply. At 48, I no longer chase the ball. I stand still, watch it roll, and write. And what I see is a pipeline that is flowing, with no clear answer as to when it runs dry.