March 11, 2010 by Damon Yeo
Filed under Opinion,
Sports
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In light of the Jack Neo scandal, the Sports editorial team
decided to veer slightly away from sports and come up with a chart
of top 8 personal accolades which probably should not have been
awarded in the first place.
Granted, no one has the power of foresight and time is the best
judge of character. However, that will not stop the editorial team
from coming up with this list, with hindsight on our side, just for
a bit of laughs and knowledge sharing.
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100% Opinion – The ranking is based on how grand the award is
and how ludicrous it looks to award that award in retrospect.
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8 ) Jack Neo (PBM or Public Service Medal,
2004) Granted, Jack Neo was awarded for his contributions
to the local film industry and his personal life should have little
to do with this. However, in light of things, should this
prestigious local award go to someone who is clearly adulterous? At
time of press, the Jack Neo saga is still unravelling and we could
be only seeing the tip of the iceberg – hence the relatively low
ranking on this chart.
7) Steven Gerrard (Member of the British Empire,
2007) Current Liverpool club captain Steven Gerrard was
awarded with the MBE in 2007 for his services to football in the
UK. It is a prestigious award, considering that he was only 27 when
he won it. One of the reasons for him winning the award was that he
was deemed a perfect role model both on and off the pitch. The
latter certainly wasn’t true as he was involved in a court case in
2008 for allegedly assaulting a DJ at a local bar. He was
eventually cleared by a jury, but CCTV footage clearly showed
Gerrard landing a punch on the poor DJ.
6) John Terry (Dad of the
year, 2009) Just last year, the UK public found it
appropriate to vote Terry as the Dad of the Year days before
Fathers’ Day. This now looks shameful, considering that millions of
fathers who worked various shifts to send their kids through
college had been overlooked, while a multi-millionaire footballer
was selected instead. The aftermath is almost inevitable, as his
affair with a certain ex-teammate’s ex-girlfriend is now out in the
public.
5) Tiger Woods (California Hall of Fame,
2007) To be very fair, the Tiger Woods we know before his
scandal came to light and after was a very different one. Before
December 2009, he was a clear role model for all, a successful
story of how one can overcome racism in sports. Afterwards, he is
just another millionaire (billionaire?) playboy. He is only still
just 34 and has years of golf-playing years left in him, so perhaps
he can turn his legacy around with further sporting achievements.
However, his “exploits” will never be forgotten by the media.
4) Victor Tan (Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year,
2004) The name Victor Tan may have faded out of news in
Singapore, but no one should forget what he has done. Tan was the
ex-CEO and Managing Director of Accord Customer Care Solutions
(ACCS), an ex-listed company in Singapore. Earlier last decade, Tan
was the darling of local media and a classic rags-to-riches story.
Having graduated without a degree, he worked for years before
starting ACCS and eventually getting it listed in the local
exchange. However, he turned out to be a fraud, as he was convicted
for his lead role in an elaborate scam to manipulate financial
statements at ACCS in 2006. Extremely ironic, given that audit
firm Ernst and Young was the one to award him with his award back
in 2004.
3) Fred Goodwin
(Knighthood, 2004) Ex-RBS Fred Goodwin was knighted by the
Queen in 2004 for his outstanding services to the financial
industry. In retrospect, it is fair to say that as the CEO of RBS,
he had almost single-handedly shifted history of the
industry, but perhaps not in a way the Queen would have agreed to.
His ever-aggressive and high risk appetite had caused the
near-collapse of RBS, which is now in the hands of the UK
government. Goodwin’s pension plan have ensured that he can see out
the rest of his life in relative comfort as shareholders of the
bank took the full brunt of his reckless policies between 2000 and
2008.
2) Yasser Arafat (Nobel Peace Prize, 1994) To
many critics, it is difficult for them to understand how Arafat
could ever win the “Peace” Prize, given that he was a founder of
one of the most active terrorist organisations over the last
century. Middle East politics is a delicate subject which the
editorial team does not wish to discuss here, but will like to
conclude Arafat’s second place ranking by saying that … peace
in Middle is still ever elusive 16 years after Arafat’s Nobel
Peace Prize.
1) Myron Scholes/Robert Merton (Nobel
Laureates for Economics, 1997) Scholes and Merton won the
Nobel in 1997 for coming up with the Black-Scholes model (every
finance student will know this), a mathematical model to calculate
the value of derivative in the fuzzy world of financial. The pair
became famous almost overnight and were also
the co-founders of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management
(LTCM). Their meteoric rise to the top is almost as spectacular as
their collapse as LTCM racked up losses of US$4.6 billions in four
months in 1998 after the Russian Financial Crisis. The hedge fund
was entirely liquidated in 2000. This clearly goes to show
that the financial markets are unpredictable and even the smartest
people on the planet cannot beat it.
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The editorial team will like to seek the opinion from
all readers on what you think. Do you agree with the Top 8?
Is there anyone that you feel is more worthy to be on the list?
Leave a comment!
If there is something that you will like us to feature as
part of this top 8 series please leave a comment and our team
will try to accomodate!
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