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Football needs ‘a lot of work’

SINGAPORE — It has been a roller coaster ride for Singapore football in the past month, first with the LionsXII celebrating a historic victory in the Malaysian FA Cup, before enduring brickbats from fans at the 28th SEA Games, where the national under-23 side crashed out of the group stage.

Singapore player after their defeat against Myanmar. Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY

Singapore player after their defeat against Myanmar. Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY

SINGAPORE — It has been a roller coaster ride for Singapore football in the past month, first with the LionsXII celebrating a historic victory in the Malaysian FA Cup, before enduring brickbats from fans at the 28th SEA Games, where the national under-23 side crashed out of the group stage.

While Singapore’s 747-strong contingent reaped a record-best haul of 84 gold 73 silver and 102 bronze medals, football was one of three sports — including petanque and tennis — that failed to medal at the SEA Games.

Singapore’s co-chef de mission Tan Eng Liang had rated the under-23 side’s performance “disappointing” after they failed to defend their bronze medal from the 2013 edition in Myanmar, and Sport Singapore (Sport SG) CEO Lim Teck Yin said football must do better.

“Very clearly there is a lot of work that needs to be done to clarify the direct outcomes that we are hoping to see from every major initiative that is implemented for football and how those outcomes accumulate to the larger positioning of football and quality of football that we see in Singapore,” said Lim at a post-Games press conference yesterday.

In 2013, the FAS and Sport SG established a taskforce to look into addressing key constraints and challenges facing the sport here, and Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) Lawrence Wong said the group have come up with “preliminary ideas”.

“My sense of it based on the feedback is that it needs a deep hard look at the broader ecosystem ... looking at how we can build a stronger, deeper ecosystem that also gets more young people to play football at a serious level, high-performance level in schools and taking it on even as they pursue their academic studies,” he said. “We have to find some way to allow that for football as well (train and study through to university level) in order to also broaden the participation of high-performance football among young people.”

As one of the highest-funded sports in Singapore — it received some S$2.5 million alone in annual government funding in the fiscal year 2013-14 — the FAS also came under fire for failing to meet the SEA Games target of reaching the final.

But Wong stressed funding is not decided by sports excellence alone, but by other factors like participation and popularity as well. Lim also added that football remains very much part of Singapore’s sports psyche.

“It is a sport that can fill the National Stadium, and has the highest number of players not just playing the sport but in the private sector running businesses, private academies, schools because there is huge interest,” he said. “So the potential, desire, and demand for football is extremely strong.” LOW LIN FHOONG

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