What's the difference between coaches and players? Foreign coaches
are coaching players to defeat their country of origin, what is the
difference when players are playing against their country of
origin? Both have moved on from their birth place and pledged more
loyalty to the colours they wear.
'The national sports have culture, tradition and
expectation of the nations to consider.' What is the
culture and tradition of Singapore? Chinese? Malay? Indians or
Eurasians? I believe it's one of integration. We've always
presented ourselves as a nation and place where different
cultures and traditions can come together and co-exist, so why is
it wrong when we have people of different origin in our national
team? With the background of Singapore, it is expected of us
to give a team comprising of individuals from
all over the world.
M'sia don't import football players, as with their stand on
indigenous people deserving more rights and benefits, and look at
where they are now with that policy. People who are better are
being denied the oppotunity because they are foreign or in cases
non-indigenous. In this kind of society, would any elite want to
join their ranks, knowing that they are better but will be treated
the same if not lesser than lesser but original people of that
place?
By putting restrictions on 'locals' and 'foreigners', progress
is being hindered due to undeserving but local people in the ranks,
thus pulling the team down. Backtalk of buying success are from
people who are blinded by nationalistic or rather feel 'their
kind' is being threatened by the trend of talent influx,
indicating a sense of inferiority. They feel that their failure is
justified and even proud of their failure because they feel that
their way is more right, since countries like Singapore are
'cheating'.
After the post on EPL teams, I thought of this. When Man Utd was
playing against the national team and thrashed them 8-0 and put
their goalkeeper as an outfield player some years ago ( if i
remember right ), who is displaying higher loyalty and pride,
players who were born outside of Singapore but playing for
Singapore or people in the stands, most of whom would
pride themselves as a born and breed in Singapore Singaporean
but cheered Man Utd on even as they humilated us?
Your solutions for the CEO of SSC, mind if you
list out some?
1. when i talk about culture, etc., i am not refering to the race,
ethnicity, etc. i am referring to the sports culture that is
embedded in a country for the longest time. i will give you a
hyphothetical e.g. if lin dan tomorrow wants to play for indonesia,
the badminton association in indonesia will NOT accept the offer.
why? becos indonesia has this strong emotional thinking that it is
a country that can produce its own champions. as i have repeated
time and again, if singapore's sports policy is to buy success,
then so be it. but don't expect a wholly supportive sports
community.
2. i have nothing against whites playing for singapore, if
he/she is born, bred and train in singapore. did i ever object to
having chinese, malay and indians in the national football team???
again, pls discuss this in perspective. when you talk in general
terms, we can discuss till the cows come home.
3. malaysia's football selection policy favours malaysians, NOT
indigenous people as you refer. Get your facts right. There are
luminaries like chin aun, seth singh (currently espn football
pundit) and a host on non-malays wearing the national jersey. they
just do not want a Nkomo Girese from nigeria playing for malaysia.
they have no problem with tan beng leong or balusamy playing for
malaysia if they can kick a decent ball.
4. your man u example is a FRIENDLY and not a competitve match.
they can put a clown there and nothing nationalistic is lost. what
are you trying to say here. your point being?
5. i don't claim to be an expert on sports here. for singapore,
for starter, you need to assess what is the strength of the country
that we can exploit. generally, singaporeans are smaller built, so
to have a 100m champion sprinter is a bit far fetch. so,
a. pick the core sports that singapore can excel in. and invest
in those. as it is, we are NOT doing too badly in sailing and
bowling. perhaps even archery and other sports can be shortlisted
for excellence. contrary to popular belief, singapore do not have
be good in EVERYTHING. even powerhouse like china is a track and
field minnow on the world stage.
b. put in the infrastructure in place. sports school is 10
years too late. much could have been done much earlier to nurture
the young. however, the singapore sports policy does not facilitate
this.
c. staff accordingly/appropriately. you will be surprised how
many sports administrators we have in the NSAs that run a country
sport but have little knowledge and passion for the sports. can the
sports flourish? that's why we hear of more controversies from the
nsas.
d. have more faith in locals. this inferiroity mindset, or the
pinkerton syndrome pervades even in sports. angmoh? sure
better....just like music, the mindset here is
local/singapore music sucks. foreigner's better. it is about
time we have more faith on our local lads. so far, has remy ong let
singapore down? there are many more remys out there if the
singapore main sports influencers have a more balanced sports
policy.
i do not want to go on and on here....
a few years ago, i have the privilege to work with many national
athletes, club athletes and also nsa, including sscs. many are
still frens with me. so, i am not writing blindly here. while
i admit that the whole trust of singapore sports has taken for
a turn for the better, i think more should be spent grooming local
athletes. but the message sent from the table tennis success is
"well, we are not afraid to buy success. if we have a
void in certain areas, we will get foreigners to fill the
gaps. where is the place for singaporeans? won't some who aspires
for sporting greatness felt discourage becos the gahmen
will wait for them but want to buy instant
success instead? we will never know if singapore is ever going
to produce roger federer if we kill a person's interest early
on becos we rather have that 2nd rate foreign tennis player
instead.
