13 children from Singapore youth football team stranded in Turkey

SINGAPORE – A group of 21 from Singapore’s youth football academy, F17, are stranded in Turkey’s Antalya Airport amid a military coup in the country. 

The team – including 13 children – were on their way to the Gothia Cup, a youth tournament in Sweden, and were headed to Istanbul on flight TK55 for transit.

But their plane was diverted to the southern Turkish city of Antalya after an attempted military coup erupted in the Turkish capital.

There are two coaches, six parents and 13 children aged nine to 14 years old in the group. According to a team list provided by F17, two are Americans while the rest are Singaporeans.

F17 academy director Mr Nabil Yusoff, who is in Singapore, told TODAY: “We’ve contacted Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Singapore embassy in Ankara and Changi Airport to alert them of our situation. We are desperately trying to reach Turkish Airlines but to no avail. We plead for assistance from anyone who can help get our kids out of Turkey as soon as possible.

“No one seems to be attending to them there. And there are thousands of people there from the numerous flights that got redirected to Antalya. Worse, now they want to transfer our kids, coaches and parents to Terminal 1 because of overcrowding and they may require the team to stay overnight there.”

The F-17 Academy also took to Facebook to appeal for help to get the team to Gothenburg in Sweden and continue on their journey.

“We plead for assistance from anyone who can help get our kids out of Turkey asap. Please help our kids get back en route to Gothenburg, Sweden to achieve their dream of representing Singapore in the Gothia World Youth Cup 2016,” it said.

TODAY understands that the MFA and its Embassy in Ankara are in touch with the Singaporeans, and are providing consular asistance to them.

For now, the team is safe in Antalya Airport and the parents of the boys who are not there with them are monitoring the situation closely.

Mr Israel Louis Ismail, a parent of two of the boys in the team, said in a comment on Facebook: "We have been monitoring this since the last six hours when the coup broke out; in touch with MFA etc. They are safe and waiting for the next flight out."

Mr Daniel Tan, who is stranded at the Antayla Airport with his two sons, told TODAY the team is coping fine.

"We're just waiting to see how things pan out and when the airports reopen and flights start taking off," he said. "I am in touch with my family. We hope we can make the news for footballing reasons next week instead." 

The MFA has advised Singaporeans "to avoid non-essential travel to Turkey for the time being".

It also advised Singaporeans in Turkey to "stay indoors, monitor the news closely and e-register with MFA".