Two Legal Gates: Indonesia, Paes and Romeny, and a National Team Rebuilt Through Naturalization Law

In August 2026, a short notice from FIFA ran through the inbox of the Indonesian football federation. The wording was as terse as a match report: the request for a change of association filed by a goalkeeper born in 2026 had been approved. No press conference, no fireworks. Just an administrative click.

But that click unlocked Maarten Paes, a man who had once worn the Netherlands U21 shirt, turning him into the goalkeeper of a country half a world away from his homeland. Six months later, in February 2026, in a hall in Jakarta, Ole Romeny raised his hand to take the naturalization oath. Two people, two legal routes, one outcome. And one question the Indonesian press raised in a tone that was anything but comfortable: are these two really Indonesian?

I sat for a long time over Paes's tape. Not match tape, but procedural tape. People watch players run; I watch when they stop, and exactly when they should have stopped. For Paes, the moment he was forced to stop was not on grass. It was at 22, in a U21 match he has probably long forgotten, and it nearly sealed the gate marked Indonesia. That is the kind of detail seven years in an editing room teaches you to see: the decision is never in the loud sequence, but in the small print of the file.

Indonesia is not the first Southeast Asian nation to walk the naturalization road. The Philippines has long done it with a wave of Filipino-American players. Malaysia has its own cases. But Indonesia's approach differs in scale and speed. Within roughly two years, PSSI did not recruit a single player; it rebuilt an entire spine: goalkeeper, centre-back, midfielder, striker.

The two headline names are Paes and Romeny. Paes is a goalkeeper, born in 2026, raised in the Dutch academy system and once called up to the Netherlands U21 side. Romeny is a forward, Indonesian by family descent, who completed his paperwork with a citizenship oath in February 2026. Around them sit other names from the same wave, such as Haye, Verdonk and Diks.

Legally, their route runs through two independent gates. The first is Indonesian nationality law, specifically Law No. 12/2026, whose Article 20 permits naturalization in the national interest and requires approval from the House of Representatives (DPR). The second is FIFA's regulatory framework on eligibility for national teams, the so-called "substantial connection", which includes the criterion of a grandparent born on the territory of the federation.

Note carefully: neither gate asks about indigenous blood. That is the crux most articles skip when they call this a "legal loophole". From where I sit, as someone who explains the rules, this is a familiar confusion: audiences equate "eligible" with "reasonable". In law, the two words are entirely different.

The first gate and the administrative price

Indonesia's Law No. 12/2026 does not grant citizenship automatically. Article 20 is a discretionary clause: naturalization in the national interest, subject to parliament. That means each case is not a stamp but a session. Each player is a file, a vote, a debate.

I once spent two weeks cross-checking 47 foul incidents in a single match after miscounting one centre-back's yellow cards. I learned something: the error was not in the number, but in the recorder refusing to count again. Numbers do not lie, but recorders can. In Indonesia's case, the notable number is not goals; it is the number of parliamentary sessions required to legalize a place in the national squad.

The second gate is far more delicate. FIFA does not let a player wear any shirt he likes. It demands a substantial connection: a parent or grandparent born on the federation's territory. For Indonesia, that boundary coincides with a specific historical trace, the Dutch East Indies.

Where the grandparents were born - the condition nobody likes to mention

This is where the file gets interesting. Part of the Dutch-Indo community, including the group known as "blijvers" - European settlers who remained long-term in the Indies - has descendants born on territory that is now Indonesia. Those children grew up in the Netherlands, speak Dutch, and play inside the Dutch system. But on paper, their grandparents were born in a place FIFA calls the territory of the Indonesian federation.

The law does not ask about blood. The law asks about birthplace. That is a designed criterion, not a system error. When the Indonesian press writes that Paes and Romeny have "no indigenous blood", it is right biologically and wrong legally. FIFA's criterion has never demanded blood.

And that supply is finite. The "blijvers" community does not regenerate on a fixture calendar. Each recruitment drains the pool a little more. This is the point nobody wants to say out loud: Indonesia is mining a historical seam, and seams run dry.

Why goalkeeper and striker

Set the law aside and return to the pitch. In any line-up, two positions let a single individual change results most: the goalkeeper and the central striker. A good goalkeeper covers an inexperienced back line, a common situation at national-team level where players meet a few times a year. A good striker turns a stalemate into three points.

Paes and Romeny occupy exactly those two slots. Had PSSI chosen to naturalize two wide players, the effect would be markedly smaller. Targeting the spine was not luck; it was calculation. I do not believe in luck; I believe in slow-motion replay. Slow down a legal file and you see the tactical logic inside it.

Here lies a gap. The reporting asserts that the naturalization wave has "raised the team's strength". That strength is asserted, not measured. No FIFA ranking points, no qualifier results, no PPDA figures are cited. We have a claim. Claims have no expiry date; evidence does.

Paes's federation transfer - the most fragile file

Of the two, Paes deserves closer scrutiny. He once wore the Netherlands U21 shirt. That means he represented another federation at youth level, and to switch to Indonesia he had to pass through the change-of-association mechanism, which permits a switch only once and attaches strict conditions.

FIFA approved Paes in August 2026. But the detail that made me stop was his age when he played for the Netherlands U21 side. He played at U21 level while already past 20, the borderline zone where change-of-association rules turn sensitive. This is the "one-second decision" type of detail. Misread the rule by a hair and the whole file collapses.

I raise this not to doubt FIFA, but to show that Paes's eligible route is not as smooth as the headlines suggest. It runs through one of the narrowest gaps in international football law. If it is narrow for Paes, it will be narrower for those who follow.

A recruitment channel with no transfer fee

From an economic angle, this is an unusual recruitment channel. No transfer fee. No negotiation with a club. But "no fee" does not mean "free". The price sits elsewhere: legal negotiation time, administrative cost, political capital. PSSI pursued Paes's file persistently over a long period, deploying relationships and resources to pass each gate.

At club level, this channel is the equivalent of a buying club importing finished talent rather than developing it. It lifts the national team's ceiling in the short term. It also creates a substitution effect: as national-team places are progressively occupied by Europe-developed players, the minutes available to domestic players compress. That is an invisible cost, absent from every press release.

A match lasts 90 minutes, but discipline lasts a whole season. A naturalization strategy works the same way. It is not measured over one transfer window, but over a national cycle spanning a decade.

The ASEAN arms race

Indonesia is not acting in a vacuum. The Philippines and Malaysia also treat passports as a sporting tool. When many nations run the same race, the value of the advantage declines for each. This is a classic problem: if everyone strengthens the same way, nobody actually strengthens.

Yet Indonesia holds an edge others struggle to copy: colonial history. The Dutch East Indies left behind a diaspora large enough to mine. Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand do not share that source's scale and character. It is a structural advantage, not an accident.

Vietnam, seen from the neighbouring stand

Covering the regional market, I keep one simple comparison frame. Vietnam and Thailand build on domestic players and collective cohesion. Indonesia is testing another path, using its European diaspora as a resource. Two models, two speeds.

If Indonesia's model succeeds, pressure on neighbouring federations rises immediately. The pressure is not about Vietnam having to imitate it, but about a regional table shifting faster than domestic football can develop. A domestic generation needs eight to ten years. A naturalization wave can change standings in two or three.

The chaos of the match is the surface; beneath it lie the rules of numbers. And the number here is time.

When emotion meets law

One thing I want to say plainly. Paes and Romeny wearing the Indonesia shirt is legal. Not a trick. Not a loophole. It is a pre-designed route, and they walked it in the correct sequence.

What deserves debate is not eligibility. It is sustainability. A strategy built on the descendants of colonial-era settlers is a closed strategy. That pool has a floor. When the floor shows, the federation must return to football's hardest, slowest work: youth development.

Indonesia's biggest risk is not a FIFA sanction. It is reputational: if a heavy defeat follows a fresh change-of-association request, the "loophole" story will instantly fuse with a "this team does not represent us" story. Two separate narratives, joined, produce political pressure of a different order.

One more counter-intuitive point: dependence on two individuals in two key positions actually raises tactical risk. If Paes is injured, the defence loses its anchor. If Romeny dips, the attack loses its outlet. A spine built on two people is very strong, and very thin.

People talk about "strength" as a single block. I see a chain of dependencies: the legal file, the FIFA gate, dressing-room integration, and fitness. Four links, four points that can snap.

What to track from here

Over the coming months, four signals will stay in my notebook. First, PSSI's new naturalization rounds and parliamentary approvals: they show whether the pipeline still flows or has run dry. Second, FIFA's movements around the grandparent criterion: any review would put Indonesia's model on the scales. Third, the response of neighbouring federations, especially Vietnam's calls on diaspora players. Fourth, dressing-room integration effects, which no legal file can measure.

Southeast Asian football is entering a period where the flag on a shirt can be issued on paper faster than through an academy. That is not wrong. It simply poses a question every federation in the region must eventually answer for itself: as the historical supply runs down, do you want to be an assembled national team, or a built football nation?