Associations raring for bite of S$25m carrot

SINGAPORE — The offer of an additional S$25 million in funding is proving irresistible for some national sports associations (NSAs), who are already brainstorming on ways to tap the Government’s newest initiative.

On Tuesday, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong announced in Parliament that NSAs will get an extra S$5 million annually for five years to fund innovative programmes. These are aimed at promoting participation and excellence in the respective sports.

The money is on top of the annual funding for NSAs, which was pegged at S$70.46 million in funding and grants for the fiscal year 2013/14.

While details have yet to be released to about 65 NSAs, Netball Singapore is already mulling over having a mobile application that functions as a player management system.

Said its Chief Executive Officer Cyrus Medora: “We need money to do more things and Ruth Aitken (Technical Director and national coach) was talking about a player management system we can use for players to check in and out, and monitor the intensity of their strength and conditioning training. We are looking at the possibility of a smartphone app.”

The Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) is exploring hosting international events such as the International Association of Athletics Federations Continental Cup, a two-day track-and-field world cup featuring teams from Africa, the Americas, the Asia-Pacific and Europe.

“We were told that we are not organising enough international events, so we have to work on this,” said SAA President Tang Weng Fei.

“Asian Championships, World Youth Championships or World Juniors are the standard events, but we need to think about events that are different.”

Table tennis chief Lee Bee Wah hopes to secure funding for some of the Singapore Table Tennis Association’s existing programmes and lobby for funds to host the International Table Tennis Federation World Tour Grand Finals. “We already have several innovative programmes, such as our collaboration with People’s Association to form PAssion table tennis clubs,” she said.

“These promote community and family bonding among residents … they provide opportunities for them to learn the sport and improve their skills. This initiative is not receiving any funding and we hope SSC (Singapore Sports Council) will consider not only new programmes but existing ones.

“We believe Singapore must host an international tournament to drive the growth of table tennis. It is ironic that we have tennis and netball world events here but we seem to forget about the sport that brought three Olympics medals to Singapore!”

National athletes who are not receiving funding from the Sports Excellence Scholarship will be given funding and support if they train full-time at least six months before next year’s South-east Asian Games and the ASEAN Para Games in Singapore.

Those who are students will also enjoy more flexibility in their academic curriculum or examinations.

Local paddlers such as Pang Xuejie, Clarence Chew and 2010 Youth Olympic Games silver medallist Isabelle Li are expected to benefit from the support in their bids to win SEA Games medals, while team sports such as netball want to tap on the additional resources to do well in the SEA Games.

Said Medora: “Team sports are a bit different … we’re not likely to do full-time training for six months, but we could do four to six weeks. There will also be the Asian Championships and Nations Cup building up to the SEA Games, so the final few weeks will be important.”