A S$25 million boost for S’pore football

SINGAPORE — Leading international media rights company MP & Silva believes it can help the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) lift the sport’s standards in Singapore, but admitted it would be a challenging affair.

Yesterday, the FAS inked a six-year deal with MP & Silva worth more than S$25 million — the association’s biggest commercial partnership to date — which will see the London-based firm cover the global media rights for Singapore’s national and age-group teams, restructure the FAS’ sponsorship packages and seek development opportunities for national teams and players.

MP & Silva also aims to annually bring four to six matches with international teams such as England, Italy and Spain to the National Stadium and create opportunities for overseas training stints for Singapore’s national players, including the Belgian league, where discussions are under way for a possible collaboration for the next six years.

MP & Silva founding partner Andrea Radrizzani is aware of the problems faced by Singapore football, including poor attendances and low interest in the S-League, insufficient sponsors and criticism that playing standards were not competitive enough.

But Radrizzani insisted that he was entering the partnership with his eyes wide open.

“We decided to invest because football is the No 1 sport in terms of followers and interest,” he said. “At the same time, we believe there is a lack of planning and professional management in terms of event line-ups, and this is the area that will engage sponsors and partners the most. This is the first step — providing visibility to sponsors.

“We need to do a lot of events, and events-wise, it is going to be very risky. When you have Singapore’s national team play with Manchester United, for example, you have to probably spend S$5 million.

“It is very difficult financially, but if you don’t bring top-class teams in — and the market in Singapore is very sophisticated — they won’t care. We must be creative and have long-term deals with the teams we bring in.”

FAS president Zainudin Nordin added: “When you look at the challenges we face, we need to come out of our comfort zone and find ways to do things differently. In the past, we were a bit more ad-hoc and opportunistic because we didn’t have the right resources and muscle.”

Acknowledging that the FAS lacked the required resources to implement its Strategic Plan, which was first unveiled in 2010, Radrizzani said it was the association’s receptiveness to ideas and the ambition of its Strategic Plan that convinced MP & Silva to partner the FAS.

Headquartered in London and Singapore with offices around the world, including Tokyo and New York, MP & Silva has an annual turnover of US$650 million (S$878 million) and has drawn up sports programming across 215 countries. Its clients and partners include FOX Sports, the German Bundesliga and the Brazilian Football Confederation.

Last month, the company signed a 15-year, US$350 million deal with the Football Association of Malaysia structured around media and commercial rights for the Malaysian Super League.

Noting many Singapore fans’ general pessimism towards Singapore football, Radrizzani felt mindsets must change. “Everybody keeps saying Singapore is not the best market for sponsors, because it is very small, but this is the spotlight in Asia. And we have the new iconic National Stadium that we can utilise,” he said.

“I don’t think we are going to be profitable in the short term, but this could be a very important long-term project, and one we can replicate in other countries with profits.”