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The Big Read: FAS’ remedy for what ails football - More of everything

SINGAPORE — When the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) announced the appointment of Mr Michel Sablon as its new technical director at the Jalan Besar Stadium in April, he was touted as one of the best in the world to help arrest the slump in Singapore football.

SINGAPORE — When the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) announced the appointment of Mr Michel Sablon as its new technical director at the Jalan Besar Stadium in April, he was touted as one of the best in the world to help arrest the slump in Singapore football.

After all, the 67-year-old Belgian is widely credited for Belgium’s meteoric rise in world football in recent years.

Two months later on June 11, from the vantage point of the Jalan Besar Stadium’s hospitality suite, Mr Sablon saw the daunting challenges he faces in turning Singapore’s most popular sport around.

That evening, the Republic crashed out of the group stages of the 28th SEA Games after losing 1-0 to Indonesia, dashing Singapore’s hopes of a first gold medal at the biennial event.

The fact that most other Team Singapore athletes had outperformed to bring in a record haul of 84 gold, 73 silver and 102 bronze medals has put the spotlight on how far the footballers have fallen behind on the regional and international stage.

The facts speak for themselves.

In the past 10 years, Singapore’s standing in FIFA’s World Ranking of 209 countries has plunged 62 rungs to the current 154th spot.

The national team has also failed to achieve the goals outlined in the FAS’ five-year strategic plan from 2010 to 2015. For instance, the Lions did not breach the top 10 Asian ranking by 2015, and are now 27th out of 46 national sides in the region.

In the domestic league, S-League clubs have been playing to near empty stands.

While the LionsXII’s foray into the Malaysian Super League (MSL) has piqued interest among fans and brought back memories of Singapore’s past success in the Malaysia Cup, results on the field have been mixed.

What ails Singapore football?

The lack of money and professionalism, as well as poor youth development, say top FAS officials and observers interviewed by TODAY.

“The world of football is a multi-billion business that requires a high level of professionalism,” said Bernd Stange, the national team coach.

“I would say that at this moment, we are half way on that road to professionalism. Improvement is still necessary in nearly all departments.”

 

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

 

In mid-May, two weeks before the SEA Games football competition, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong said that student participation rate in football in school should be much higher.

Only 6.9 per cent of boys between the ages 7 and 12 play football in schools, according to FAS.

“In most countries, more than 20 per cent of kids play soccer,” FAS general secretary Winston Lee told TODAY via email.

“We also need our kids to play often and in a structured way. In Europe, the recommended period is 4.5 hours a week for 40 weeks. Today, there is no structure that even allows this. Primary school soccer tournaments, at best, last from one to three months.”

An FAS survey released last year also found that out that 40 per cent out of a sampling of 100 primary schools and 28 per cent of 168 secondary schools did not offer football as a Co-Curricular Activity.

The way football is played and coached in schools is also wrong, said Mr Sablon.

“What has surprised me most is the way the kids are being coached,” he said. “I’ve been to several events and school matches and I’ve seen kids being made to play football like adults. And they are under so much pressure to win. This cannot be the way.”

Top young talents, he noted, are also playing too many matches for their school, club and national age-group team.

“That’s three games a week. Where is the time for them to learn how to play football?”

He said FAS’ aim is to have as many children playing football as possible.

“There are 187 primary schools here, and you have 220,000 kids in them. So if we can get five to 10 per cent of them playing, that’s 10,000 to 22,000 kids. But it is not just about the number of children playing, but also what we teach them,” he said.

The best of these young talents need a comprehensive development system which is currently lacking.

For one, the FAS cut the number of centres of excellence (COEs) for youth development early last year from 24 to 18. As each centre takes in 25 footballers, this has reduced the number of places from 600 to around 450.

The number of S-League clubs operating them was also reduced from eight to just three - Warriors FC, Home United and Balestier Khalsa.

This was because many clubs lacked the financial and physical resources, facilities and staff to run a COE, FAS’s Mr Lee said.

“These include having pitches, a team of coaches, including the head coach, fitness and goalkeeper coaches, and admin staff.”

The crème de la crème of the COEs go on to hone their skills at the four age-group national football academies (NFAs) that altogether have a capacity for about 150 young players. These NFAs almost exclusively supply players for the Young Lions in the S-League and the LionsXII in the Malaysia Super League teams, and this narrow conduit is a bane of contention for several S-League clubs. “When you have too narrow a system, your tolerance level for talent scouting is very, very thin” said Geylang United chairman Leong Kok Fann.

He suggests that if the net is cast wider for other clubs and bodies to develop talent, there will be more opportunities for the targeted 22,000 football-playing youths to get into the system to feed the national teams.

The present weak production line is evident in the under-23 team’s string of poor performances before and during the SEA Games.

Their under-22 counterparts also failed to make the 2016 Asian championships after they were held by minnows Mongolia and Laos, who went through along with China in their Group B qualifiers.

Added Mr Leong: ““The recent results may be a blessing in disguise because it brings into sharper focus that things are not well in our youth development.”

National team coach Stange said another issue that has to be tackled is the national service commitments of young players during what he calls “the most crucial period of their development”.

The call last week by Singapore National Olympic Council President and Minister for Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin for ways to provide more flexibility for athletes who are serving national service is therefore timely, he added.

 

QUESTION OF LEADERSHIP AND FUNDS

 

FAS underwent a change of leadership in 2008 when Mr Lee took over the helm. Mr Zainudin Nordin, a Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, was appointed president the following year.

But the duo could not arrest the slide in football standards, and the FAS’ strategic plan in 2010 in particular has failed to translate into results on the field.

“It is a fact that we have not done well on the field in recent times,” Mr Lee conceded. “The results speak for themselves. The SEA Games exit was disappointing for all of us. We are currently conducting a thorough review to pinpoint the areas we came up short in, so as to ensure that we do better moving forward.

Funding is an issue, he said, adding that the 2010 Strategic Plan was based on an ambitious projected budget of S$19 million a year, almost double its annual budget of S$9.7 million.

“When we realised that the required financial resources were not forthcoming, we decided to prioritise our needs versus our desires – and so we made youth development our top priority,” he said, adding that it will take time for this to bear fruits but the early signs are encouraging, particular with some young players been selected by overseas clubs for training stints and attachments.

FAS gets S$2.5 million from Sport Singapore (SportSG) annually, plus an additional S$7.2 million through other sources such as sponsorships and gate receipts.

Although FAS is among national sports associations (NSAs) that receive the largest share of government funding, its S$9.7 million annual budget is not enough if Singapore were to compete at the Asian level, said Mr Lee, pointing to how Indonesia’s budget is more than 10 times higher at S$112 million. Vietnam gets $60 million, Thailand $52 million and Malaysia $35 million.

“When you compare it to the Asian powerhouses, the disparity is much wider – Japan gets $264 million a year, South Korea $95 million and China $180 million,” he added.

The weak coffers, according to Mr Lee, have prevented the FAS from sending its national teams overseas more often for top-level exposure, which top European coaches and technical directors have told FAS is important.

He said that a typical two-week overseas stint for 20 players and eight officials would cost S$240,000, a luxury that top Asian countries like Japan are able to indulge in.

Mr Lee’s argument however flies in the face of how the Philippines Football Federation has managed to improve from 191st position in 2005 on the FIFA World rankings to its current 137th spot despite having a budget about one third of Singapore’s.

Could a review of how the FAS is managed help pave the way forward?

SportsSG chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin believes so.

“Some points of view that I have heard is that (the FAS) is so busy with its operations that there is scant time and attention for other things. That’s not good,” said Mr Lim. “If the FAS is in sustained operations mode like that, then, the whole idea of strategy design, initiatives, programmes, projects always end up being under-attended to.”

Mr Lee however says that FAS officials have done their best with the resources that they have, while pointing out that in SportsSG’s organisational excellence reports in 2012 and 2013, FAS was ranked in the top three.

“In coming out with our first Strategic Plan (in 2010), we chose to stretch ourselves,” he added. “Some of our goals were ambitious, and perhaps some people would say, not realistic, and some were achievable. But I like to set challenging goals for myself and my staff that can stretch us, and benefit all who are working here.”

He said FAS has tried to stretch its limited resources “as much and as creatively as possible”.

“It’s like we had $1 previously, which took us from Point A to Point B. We came up with a plan that would take us to Point E but which would cost us $3. But we didn’t get $3. We got $1.10 instead, but we’ve used it as best as we could to get to Point C,” he said.

A key weakness of the association, Mr Lee admitted, was its poor communication, especially when the national teams were not delivering results.

“Perhaps, where we have not done well is in communicating and being open about the challenges that we have faced, including the financial constraints, which prevented us from achieving a number of our targets. We should have been more open,” added Mr Lee.

 

PLOTTING A MAP OUT OF THE WOODS

 

The FAS, observers say, can do with better management and marketing expertise to rope in big-name sponsors who could bankroll its entire suite of programmes to turn things around.

A move to beef up at least its marketing arm was made in February this year when the FAS inked a partnership deal worth S$25 million over six years with leading international media rights company MP & Silva to create new revenue streams for Singapore football.

Among other things, MP & Silva will help the FAS restructure its sponsorship packages and find new sponsors and commercial opportunities.

“MP & Silva will be able to help source for good international opponents for friendlies and quadrangular tournaments. The partnership also has the potential to open doors for us and our players to the Belgian, Polish and Scottish leagues,” said Mr Lee.

SportsSG chief Mr Lim said his outfit could also work with the FAS to build a management committee that has the right mix of experience and expertise.

The national sports authority, he added, has on its roster staff who study and analyse systems to lift a sport to another level.

“Where there is a significant market failure, we could step in and try and support the eco-system,” said Mr Lim. “The idea is to attract talented people who have aspiration to be more competitive and to be able to participate at a higher level of excellence.”

He proposed that through the Singapore Sports Institute (SSI) there can be collaboration between SportsSG and FAS experts to adopt a more analytical and scientific approach to football.

“We’ve put together a team to study football to get a sense of the eco-system and to understand where some of the challenges are,” said Mr Lim.

Mr Lee of FAS said it has been trying over the years to boost its capabilities in football science and medicine.

“We have also embarked on several key initiatives in the past few years to enhance the physical and psychological well-being of our players, and also come up with injury prevention and management programmes to cut down on the recurrence of major injuries to our players,” he added.

Another area SportsSG could help FAS is quality fields that S-League clubs need to run COEs on their own. The sports authority comes under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, which is working with the Ministry of Education to open 15 more indoor sports halls and 10 more school fields for public use.

This, said chairman of former S-League club Gombak United John Yap, could help S-League clubs to get back their COEs.

This could also help clubs forge closer ties with schools, he said.

“It is workable and a win-win situation for everyone because every professional club in the world has its own football academy.”

 

LONG ROAD BACK TO HEALTH

 

FAS has adopted a two-pronged strategy to turn the fortunes of football here. The first task of improving and revamping the youth development system falls on Mr Sablon. Concurrently, as part of its grassroots strategy, FAS will try to expand the playing base with a Cubs Grassroots Football Programme headed by FAS Vice-President Bernard Tan.

“Right now we have too few kids playing football,” said Mr Lee. “So there is the need to look into this. We are trying to bring the game to non-football playing schools and get more boys and girls learning to play the game properly.

On his part, Mr Sablon has penned a new strategy that spells out how each age group of young footballers should learn to play football.

For those from six to seven years old, football is all about having fun. They get a little technical in the next two years playing one-on-one up to three-on-three to develop their basic skills.

“When the kids are between 10 and 13 years old, they are in what I call the Golden Years,” said the Belgian.

“That is when we teach them how to play football properly. That’s also when they need a proper programme, which I call Progress through Elite Development (PED) with proper coaches and infrastructure. That’s when they go from 5 v 5, to 8 v 8, to 11 v 11, learn basic individual and team skills, and more importantly, to read the game.”

He cautioned against pushing young footballers to win and filtering the best for further development.

“If you only select the best, and focus only on the school team, then the rest of the kids don’t get to play. And when you focus only on winning, the children don’t learn how to play football. The thing is, at youth level, results are not that important. What we are trying to achieve is a better football education for the players because the teams will become better when the players become better.”

A key part of his menu is to fulfil the FAS’ Strategic Plan in producing better calibre coaches. To get this done, he and his team are in discussions with the Asian Football Confederation to introduce a new coaches’ education system that is on par with the top European system.

And how long before his plan come to fruition at the senior national level?

“In Belgium, it took 10 years. It should take the same time in Singapore. But the current nine-year-olds will be going into the PED programme in September or October. In two years, we should already start seeing the difference in their technical abilities.”

“However, for Singapore to succeed, we need support from the authorities like the Ministry of Education. Help us by giving us the financial support to educate the coaches, and the facilities and infrastructure to train the children,” he said.

“People – the MOE, coaches, schools and clubs - have to start asking themselves: ‘Do we want to have quality in our coaching programmes for the kids? Are we ready to change our mindset to achieve this?’ he asked.

“Let’s have the courage to change the current situation dramatically. If we go that way, we will be successful.”

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