FAS Elections: Seeking unity, Team LKT reaches out to critics, opponents after win

SINGAPORE – Uniting a Singapore football fraternity that found itself divided in the lead-up to the first-ever Football Association of Singapore (FAS) elections will be a key priority of Team LKT in the aftermath of the national sports association’s (NSA) historic polls.

The team, led by new president Lim Kia Tong, was handed the mandate to govern Singapore football for the next four years after achieving a dominant 30-13 victory in the elections over Team Game Changers, which was spearheaded by Hougang United chairman Bill Ng.

With the six individual council seats also won by Team LKT-aligned independent candidates, it meant that the team completed a clean sweep of all 15 council seats that were up for grabs.

Yet despite the comfortable victory, there was still no masking the fact that the elections has split the local football community, especially in light of the recent saga surrounding a S$500,000 donation that Tiong Bahru FC (TBFC) – which is owned by Ng – made to the Asean Football Federation (AFF) via the FAS.

However, Lim was keen to emphasise that one of the new council’s immediate tasks would be to mend this rift, and said that they would even engage with members of Team Game Changers in order to unite Singapore football.

“In managing and administrating the game of football, unity and solidarity is of utmost importance,” said the 64-year-old lawyer who was a vice-president in the previous council.

“For those who didn’t support us this time, we will definitely work hard to bring back their support.

“With that, I call on everyone in football community – from coaches, players, the media, fans and even our opponents today to set aside our past differences and to work together for the good of Singapore football.

“It will take all of us together to rejuvenate football for our country. The main plan going is…to bring up the game to a higher level, and to bring the community together to heal the game.”

SHAKE HANDS AND MOVE ON

New FAS deputy president Bernard Tan agreed. “In the game of football, you play hard, and once the whistle is blown and the results are finalised, you shake hands and move on,” he said.

“That’s what we want to do as a (football) community. We want to set the example of a NSA that has a good robust elections, and emerges stronger after it’s over rather than being disunited. So certainly, we want to make sure that’s the emblem of football.”

Lim revealed that the new council would convene again on Tuesday (May 2) where they will also meet up with the FAS staff.

However, he declined to talk about the future of the association’s embattled general-secretary Winston Lee.

Lee was one of four individuals – including former FAS president Zainudin Nordin as well as Ng and his wife Bonnie Wong – who were arrested last week following a police report that Sport Singapore (SportSG) filed into the suspected misuse of club funds at TBCF and an attempt by a senior club official – believed to be Ng – to obstruct the completion of audits of the S.League’s sit-out clubs.

All four are currently out on police bail and are assisting the police with their investigations. The incident also led to police raiding the FAS headquarters and the clubhouses of TBFC, Hougang and Woodlands Wellington.

Lee was also involved in a public spat with Ng over the issue of TBFC’s donation to the AFF.

Ng had pinpointed Lee as the person who had requested for the club to donate to the AFF for the development of their Football Management System (FMS), but Lee instead claimed - and later showed proof - that it was Zainudin who had done the soliciting.

LEE’S FUTURE

The saga has cast a shadow over Lee’s future at the FAS, but when asked, Lim simply said: “The future of any FAS staff is an aspect we will deal with individual staff behind closed doors.

“We have to respect the terms of their employment contract and all the other aspects related to the management of staff, so we will not make any comment as to his (Lee’s) future. That will be best left to be decided much later.”

Nonetheless, Tan said that with the entire saga bringing to the forefront issues about governance, the new council would pay close attention to improving that aspect of the FAS moving forward.

“Obviously, this (addressing the issues of the recent saga) is one of our priorities given the events of the past few weeks,” explained Tan, who is the chief marketing officer at ST Engineering.

“I think it’s the duty of the FAS council to address the issues of governance as well as the issues of the clubs that are…related to gaming machines.

“I think football wants to move forward, and it’s important for us to move it together with the community.

“The FAS has to do it with member associations as well as the stakeholders, including SportSG and all the relevant authorities.

“It will be a challenging time, but that’s one of the first things that we need to put right.”

When asked if the controversies surrounding Ng in the lead-up to elections had played a part in their convincing victory, vice-president Edwin Tong replied that while this question would be best directed to the affiliates, he felt that it was his team’s sincerity and integrity that swung the votes in their favour.

“I think it’s a combination of several factors, some of which include the fact that the team has been very sincere in wanting to engage (with the affiliates),” said Tong.

“They believed in the programmes that we said we’ll implement, and also at the end of the day, there was a sense of trust in the integrity of the team and the belief that we can take Singapore football forward.”

The team also reiterated that despite having several members of the previous FAS council on board, they were committed to changing the way that the FAS worked for the better.

Said Lim: “The very strong endorsement coming from the affiliates in giving the slate a two-third majority vote is already a strong testament to their belief in us and our team’s three pillars of ‘change, inclusiveness and integrity’.

“We want to be inclusive in whatever change we implement and in the way we carry out our duties as a council…we will not act like a sheriff going into town and drawing our guns and shooting blindly.

“What we will be doing is to move change in a certain direction and extent.

“Whatever nature the change will be entirely depends on what is needed. But for sure, change will come, because if we are not prepared to do so, then we will not be here in the first place.”