Give Lions’ coach time and space to showcase his abilities

It has been over a month since V Sundramoorthy stepped down from his role as Singapore’s national football coach, and while Fandi Ahmad has just been named as an interim replacement, Sundram continues to be criticised for his stint.

The results during his tenure have been heavily scrutinised, and much of the blame for the Lions' poor Fifa rankings has been placed on his shoulders.

While it is fair that Sundram takes some heat as this is a results-based industry, and a coach is ultimately judged by his results, we must ask ourselves if his job was assisted or hampered by the people who employed him?

Sundram was appointed to replace Bernd Stange to much fanfare in May 2016. However, he was only given a one-year contract as caretaker manager then.

The issue of the length of contracts has plagued local football for a number of years, and short-term contracts of 11 or 12 months put undue pressure on coaches and players.

The lack of job security can put mental, emotional and financial stress on them and affect their performances and plans.

The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has defended the short contracts on the basis that longer contracts breed complacency.

But what is amusing is that this principle does not extend to the FAS council members who have a tenure of four years – longer than those plying their trade in the Singapore Premier League.

INCONSISTENT YOUTH POLICY

Sundram also had to contend with inconsistent youth policies that the FAS had introduced over time.

This year, the FAS mandated youth participation that resulted in the six local clubs in the S-League having to start at least three Under-23 players in every game.

The FAS also abolished the Prime League - the S-League’s reserve and youth tournament - leaving the Under-19 league as the last step before professional football.

Footballers at the crucial ages of 17 to 22 are likely to be juggling studies or National Service (NS), but the FAS hopes that they can play professional football as well.

Furthermore, a player could go from playing first team football to having his career disrupted due to national service and thereafter struggling to come back to professional football, if he returns at or after the age of 24, in a short period of time.

The changes to the league were aimed at giving young players opportunities at the professional level, said the FAS, but little thought was put into why younger players were not making the step up.

The situation is likely a consequence of the FAS’s youth policy from five years ago, when it reduced the number of club development teams, and in turn the talent pool and quality of players.

The rationale then was to focus resources on a smaller, targeted group of players.

However, we must remember that the journey from playing in youth teams to playing at a professional level is a process of attrition. It is the survival of the fittest, so the smaller the pool, the less competitive it is.

Now, feedback from coaches, including the new national coach Fandi Ahmad, is that young players lack tactical and technical ability.

This is not a coincidence.

Instead of accepting the impact of its past plans, the FAS has chosen to lament coaches’ unwillingness to play these young players, and to mandate playing time for them.

As a result, our national coach is deprived of a pool of good young players to choose from, leaving him to rely on older players.

That same coach is then questioned over the lack of young players in the national team, and thereafter directed to play the young players whose development was curtailed just five years ago.

The inconsistent youth policies have also had a knock-on effect on the livelihoods and careers of older players as the league’s youth participation rule has deprived them of places.

This rule is unfair and unsustainable.

We only have to look at our very own Hafiz Sujad’s stint in JDT II for the effects of protected places in teams.

He ended his move early after being deprived of playing time due to the club’s rules that mandated starting positions for players from JDT I that played for JDT II.

Some players have also had their careers ended abruptly as clubs are now forced to reserve spaces in their squads for younger players.

The long-term effect is that football is going to seem even less viable as a career option once you turn 24, and our pool of players will shrink even more.

Given these challenges, the position of national football team coach is a peculiar one.

Before a coach is able to focus on the team, he has to navigate the constraints NS places on national footballers as well as the demands of football administrators and their ever-changing youth policies. 

Little regard is given to these challenges when a coach does not get the desired results, and his ability is immediately questioned.

Isn’t it time that changes?

The FAS has come up with plans to expose more kids to football and develop their skills.

Why not trust that process, and have the patience to see it out till we produce young players who earn their places on their own merit?

Artificial structures and quick fixes are disruptive and will only result in another revamp to our policies again soon.

That can be avoided if we stay true to our values and believe in our own plans.

As the search for a new head coach to take over in January 2019 continues, the question that needs to be answered now is: Can we provide our coach with a stable environment in which he is allowed to showcase his true abilities?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sudhershen Hariram is a lawyer with Tan Rajah & Cheah and played for Tanjong Pagar United FC in the S-League from 2011 to 2012.