Singaporean tasked to lift Thai football

SINGAPORE — Widely regarded as the best professional football league in South-east Asia, the Premier League Thailand (PLT) now has plans to be among the best competitions in Asia and has hired a Singaporean to help achieve its goals.

Mr Benjamin Tan (picture), the Football Association of Singapore’s former deputy director of development and planning, has joined the Thailand Football Association (FA) as the PLT’s deputy CEO, as well as its director of club licensing. 

According to the 39-year-old, his job scope in Thailand includes supervising the management and operations of the PLT; working with clubs to produce “commercially attractive content” through a highly-competitive league; and to implement good governance and professional administrative standards across the league.

“I am excited and optimistic about the future of Thai football,” said Tan, who was the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC’s) head of club competitions from 2008 to 2014. “Besides ­delivering a vibrant professional league, I’m hoping to use my experience and knowledge to help the Thai national team in their efforts to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, and improve football in all aspects.

“I would like the Thai people and visitors to Thailand to love and be proud of Thai football and keep supporting their teams to do well in both club and international levels.”

Tan, who speaks Thai fluently, started his career in 2000 as a competitions executive in FAS and rose through the ranks before joining the AFC in 2008. He returned to FAS last year but was soon offered a challenge he could not turn down by new Thai FA president Somyos Pumpanmuang. Pumpanmuang could not be reached for comment as he is in Mexico for the Fifa Congress.

“I was bowled over by the energy and drive which the new Thai FA president had with his new management team. When his offer came, it was a challenge that I couldn’t refuse,” said Tan, who has a 2-year-old daughter with his Vietnamese wife, Huong Tran, who is a match commissioner with the AFC.

Founded in 1996 at the same time as the S.League, the PLT started as a poorer cousin of Singapore’s only professional sports league, with officials often heading to the Republic to seek guidance.

But the PLT has grown leaps and bounds since. Its popularity has been buoyed by the successes of the Thai national and Under-23 teams on the regional stage — four Asean Football Federations (AFF) Cup titles and nine SEA Games gold medals — as well as Thai clubs’ impressive showings in Asian competitions.

BEC Tero Sasana reached the final of the 2003 AFC Champions League while, in recent seasons, clubs such as Buriram United, Chonburi and Muangthong United are all regular competitors in Asia’s elite club competition.

While the PLT’s average attendance last season was 6,295, big clubs such as five-time champions Buriram can draw fans of more than 20,000 regularly.

But what sets Thai football apart, said Tan, is the passion from the galleries, to the pitches and boardrooms.

“I admire Thais’ love and passion for football,” he said. “People in Thailand wear their teams’ jerseys on the streets everyday. On match day, their strong pride and passion create an electrifying atmosphere at the stadiums.

“The management team led by the FA and League are also driven by passionate leaders and administrators, and this is important in raising the bar and pushing Thai football to a higher level.”

But even as Thai football is going swimmingly well, Tan believes more can be done. Pointing out how foreign visitors often flock to Muay Thai arenas to watch Thai kickboxing, Tan wants to engage them through football.

“There are many tourists and visitors in Thailand. We must make the league attractive to them, so they can experience the atmosphere of a Thai football match,” he said.

Now that the S.League has fallen behind their Thai counterparts, what can the FAS learn from the Thai FA?

The simple lesson: Deliver a quality product. “Singaporeans love their football but this popularity can be a disadvantage if we do not deliver a quality product,” said Tan. “We need to continuously look for ways to ensure fans get great value from football through quality ­action and quality fans engagement.

He added: “Singapore football, ­including the S.League, can be successful if all the stakeholders are aligned and have the same goal and support what the FAS is doing.”