Debated in Parliament on 6 Jul 2023.
Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
Madam, I beg to move*, "That this House celebrates the accomplishments of our athletes and para-athletes at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia, and calls on the Government to undertake a thorough evaluation of the areas of improvement in Singapore's sporting ecosystem, and commit to realising clear, achievable goals for sporting success over the coming decade."
*The Motion also stood in the name of Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap.
In November last year, I attended a concert by a band I loved as a teenager – Guns N' Roses. Besides reliving part of my formative years, among thousands of other middle-aged fans doing the same, I got a chance to see ageing rockers put on a spectacular show.
More recently, my sister joined another 50,000 Singaporeans at the concert more aligned to her musical tastes – the Korean girl band, Blackpink.
Both concerts were held at a stunning venue – the modern National Stadium nestled in the Singapore Sports Hub, the facility and engineering marvel that can seat as many as 55,000 was meant to host, first and foremost, world-class sporting competitions and other community events. So, as much as both my sister and I enjoyed our outings, the shadow of the failed Sports Hub's public-private partnership (PPP) hung over the scene.
We were left to wonder the future of this crowning jewel of our local sporting scene, left to hosting concerts by foreign musical acts. After all, I am old enough to recall a time when the stadium hosted the Kallang Roar. It was a time when a deep sense of nationalism welled up as we supported, especially, the football team. My mother still relates a story of me falling off the bed as a baby after being startled by a roar following Quah Kim Song's winning goal in the 1977 Malaysia Cup final.
The stars of my time, Fandi Ahmad, V Sundramoorthy and David Lee, united Singaporeans across ethnic lines in a way that top-down policies can only dream of inspiring.
But the Roar has fallen silent, as has the facility that was meant to revitalise local sports.
In today's Motion filed by myself and my fellow friend and sports fan, Faisal Manap from Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC), we hope to provoke an earnest debate on the challenges faced by our national sportsmen and women, whether they represent the country at the highest levels or if they are young aspirants seeking a healthy outlet for their time and energy.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, as much as I love sports, my domain of expertise is in economics. Hence, my opening speech will focus on the economic challenges faced in bringing Singapore sport to the next level, using, in particular, the Sports Hub episode as a foil. Mr Faisal will tackle what he and the Workers' Party believe are the non-economic challenges, using the example of football – the closest that we have to a national sport – to illustrate his points.
But we also hope that the discussion will go beyond just sports alone, because an eye to looking at our relative weaknesses on this front can offer insight into other areas of policy in Singapore, where we have been far less successful on the global stage despite our outpouring of blood and treasure to stoke greater success.
Let me begin, in the spirit of the Motion, by first congratulating our national athletes in the recently concluded 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia. Team Singapore fought hard and secured 157 medals in the SEA games and 44 in the Para Games. Every medal took sweat and tears and I ask this House to join me in a round of applause to all our athletes whether they medalled or not. [Applause.]
It is worth mentioning a few highlights. Sprint queen Shanti Pereira set a new national record for the 200 metres on her way to a double gold for the 100 metres and 200 metres. We should not forget, however, that she did so amidst a continuing battle with the burden of injuries and the pressure of immensely high expectations.
Fencer Tay Yu Ling returned to the top of the podium in fencing after retiring in 2010, proving that even in sport, age can just be a number that should not limit the boldness of our dreams.
Runner Soh Rui Yong, who had been excluded in the 2021 Games, earned a silver medal in the 10,000 metres. During the event, Soh had offered Indonesian rival Rikki Simbolon a drink after the latter had missed his in a striking mark of sportsmanship.
Our para-athletes, despite the physical odds that they face, once again did us proud. They brought home 44 medals in total, with Colin and Sophie Soon contributing a fifth of the total haul.
As much as we celebrate the achievements of these athletes, we should also be aware of where we have fallen short. Let me be clear: this does not diminish their sporting accomplishments. But unless we can candidly look at both the wins and losses, we cannot fully understand what we must do to get better.
After all, every successful sportsperson or team goes through the very same post-mortem after a competition. We need to do the same here.
Our SEA Games and Para Games performance placed us seventh among the 11 nations in total medal count for both. Given that we rank ninth in terms of population in the region, perhaps one could credibly argue that we outperformed our small size. But population is only one factor in determining cross-country sports outcomes – and not even the most important one.
If anything, systematic analysis suggests that it is countries' income that is far more influential, whether in specific sports like soccer or across sports more generally. Indeed, some have even gone as far as to argue that the same socio-economic determinants, especially wealth and development, drive sporting success.
There is a simple reason why incomes matter. Richer countries are better able to channel significant public and private resources towards sporting achievements. Hence, it is unsurprising that the quality of supporting infrastructure matters, too.
This is a prima facie reason why we might wish to promote infrastructure, such as the Sports Hub, as a catalyst to elevate local sport. It also underscores the need to prioritise soft infrastructure, such as athlete support and coach development. In that regard, Singapore has, unfortunately, not only punched below our weight but has actually consistently gotten worse.
With your permission, Mdm Deputy Speaker, may I have the Clerks distribute a handout that illustrates this under-performance in vivid detail.
Please proceed. [A handout was distributed to hon Members.]
Thank you. Members may also access these materials through the MP@SGPARL Parliament app.
I apologise in advance. I am an economist. I traffic in charts and figures, but I will walk us through this. The top panel shows a plot where the logarithm of the total medal count in the Summer Olympics is set against per capita incomes, measured in a common currency that is corrected for inflation. The small blue dots are other countries across the different competitions since 1976. Singapore is shown apropos in red.
The green line is the best-fit line from a simple linear regression. The way to read it is that observations above the line are over-achievements for their level of per capita income and vice versa for those below.
We are far below, consistent with clearly falling short. While our lack of Olympic success turns out to be not that unusual among ASEAN nations, we remain unambiguously an outlier.
A similar story can be told for our lack of football success, which is shown in the bottom panel. But here, we are now talking about a ranking, where a low number is better and so the line is inverted.
Yet, here, our story is even more disappointing. Our FIFA ranking back in 1993 is right smack on that green line, which means that we were at least consistent with our level of development. But as we have gotten richer, our ranking has, paradoxically, slid further away from where we would otherwise expect.
What explains our nation's anomalous outcomes is that it turns out money alone is not enough. Countries that have prioritised sporting achievement, including at the highest level, note that this prioritisation is what is important. This is why tiny Uruguay can win the World Cup twice and still consistently send competitive teams to the tournament. It is why Iceland's 330,000 people can qualify for international basketball and football tournaments and why Australia is a powerhouse in swimming, Jamaica keeps tearing up the tracks and the All Blacks represent New Zealand.
Part of the grand plan to revitalise our local sporting scene was the Singapore Sports Hub. The Sports Hub was conceived as a PPP that was meant to go far beyond infrastructure provision. Its bid evaluation placed a weight of two-fifths on appeal of sports, leisure and entertainment programming – more than any other criteria – reflecting the importance that the Government placed on operational considerations.
Yet, after launching to much fanfare in 2014 and as the then largest PPP project in the world, the Sports Hub would last only about a dozen years as a PPP. Around mid-June last year, the Government announced that SportSG would take over the ownership and management of the Sports Hub, stating that this would serve the interests of Singapore and Singaporeans better. This came after a "detailed financial, legal and operational due diligence" effort.
But it is notable that symptoms of underlying problems were already presenting themselves right from the start. Some of these, such as the delayed construction and launch due to the global financial crisis of 2008, were plausibly due to external factors, beyond the control of the consortium. But costs significantly overran the original estimate of $650 million to $800 million, eventually clocking in at $1.3 billion – twice the low-end estimate.
Even after construction, operational issues plagued the project. A football friendly between Brazil and Japan held in 2014 received criticism that the pitch was "more sand than grass." Just two months later, a Jay Chou concert held at the Hub was plagued by a leaky roof.
In 2016, rumours swirled about how one of the consortium partners was at risk of being ejected and a fiasco for that year's National Day Parade, which included a proposed upcharge for extra rehearsal days, poor reviews of the venue and a final price tag around twice the cost of that of the Floating Platform or the Padang.
Throughout, the facility had gone through Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) like hot potatoes, averaging one every other year, not to mention others in the c-suite.
But if these fundamental problems were known to the Government, it did not telegraph much of this to the rest of us. In a response to a Parliamentary Question posed in 2017 expressing concerns about the project, then-Minister for Community, Culture and Youth Grace Fu only revealed that SportSG was "in constant communication with Sports Hub Private Limited (SHPL)… [and] has a dedicated team of officers who monitor SHPL's performance closely and holistically."
When I asked in 2019 if there were lessons to be learnt from the episode, she declined to answer in detail, merely offering that being the "first major PPP that the Government has done, we can all learn from the process".
But we should be clear about why we pursued a PPP in the first place. Beyond the simple-minded desire to flow with a public policy fad, in principle, there are three reasons why one may pursue a PPP for a given project.
First, it is because the public sector does not have sufficient funds, and a partnership with the private sector becomes a means of unlocking necessary financing. This is often the case with infrastructure projects. Governments grant the rights of levying usage charges for, say, a road or bridge, to a private developer in exchange for their delivering the said construction project.
Second is because the desire to share the risks of the project between two parties. For projects with uncertain economic prospects, such as those who wish to build power or water treatment plants, especially in the still-developing area, roping in private partners can diversify the risks of potential losses among those with the ability and the willingness to bear such risks.
There is potentially a third area where PPP may appear to make sense but, in reality, warrants much more careful consideration. This is when the private sector may appear to possess the necessary expertise in the area, perhaps due to superior knowledge of the technology or the market.
But is it truly necessary to adopt a partnership structure where the upside from risks undertaken are mutually shared? What does the private sector contribute to the endeavour beyond their skills? Do the partners expand the market, develop the business? After all, if it is expertise alone, a superior model would be to simply hire the necessary human resources, project by project. You can think of the same thing when a firm decides on hiring workers, it takes a special contributor to be conferred the benefits of partnership.
For those unfamiliar with the model, it is easy to lay a criticism on it, but this is, to be fair, misguided. It is like blaming the tools on the poor workman. Moreover, we have extensive empirical evidence documenting the success of PPP projects in infrastructure, health and education across a wide variety of performance indicators both at home as well as worldwide.
The prototypical template is a design-build-finance-operate (DBFO) one, where all aspects of the DBFO fall on the private sector with the Government dealing with political and regulatory risks. Such projects include desalination and NeWater plants here and incineration plants, residential and university accommodation and even a whole tertiary campus – ITE College West.
But there have also been notable failures. In addition to the Sports Hub, the tender for Changi Motorsports Hub was investigated by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in 2011. SMRT was returned to direct Government management in 2016 after repeated service disruptions and the Tuaspring Integrated Water and Power Plant had to undergo debt restructuring in 2019.
But the path not taken may perhaps be just as revealing.
In 2016, the Government ruled out a PPP for Changi Terminal 3 because it did not wish to focus on profits at the expense of service standards. A similar motivation appeared to be behind the abandonment of the PPP for NUS University Town where the ability to price services would be severely constrained by the overall desire to ensure subsidised higher education.
Such sentiments are instructive because they underscore the importance of looking beyond purely financial considerations to the ultimate purpose of any given project.
As Minister Edwin Tong explained in his Statement to Parliament following the takeover announcement, the Government was aware of the options available but it chose a PPP over the traditional procurement route anyway.
We can probably rule out the first of the major justifications I outlined earlier for adopting a PPP, which is that there were financing constraints. After all, this Government – unlike, say, one of our higher education institutions – would generally have no difficulties raising the necessary funds for a major infrastructure project, especially one that contributes to key national objectives.
As proof of the pudding, this Government routinely raises amounts for key infrastructure projects that are far larger than just $1.3 billion.
The reason seems more aligned with the third justification, which is that the partnership might have availed of specialised expertise, presumably for operating the Hub. Minister Tong alluded to this, stating that the PPP model was ultimately chosen because of the "unprecedented scale and complexity of such a major sports infrastructural project and the limitations at the time of not sufficient depth and breadth of such expertise in Singapore, including in the private sector".
But as I explained, we wish to tread carefully when deciding on a partnership to leverage expertise. While such skills may well be lacking at home, it remains unclear why we did not simply put such foreign talents on the payroll. We routinely bring in consultants, experts and managers even in areas where we have some expertise in, such as in finance or technology. Besides, the all-important operational partners of the SportsHub PPP were either local or had been based here for an extended period: venue operations fell under Global Spectrum Pico, a tie-up that includes a local company, and its facilities management was overseen by DTZ, whose presence in Asia is due to another Singaporean firm, Edmund Tie.
Perhaps, then, it comes down to the second justification, which is a desire to share risks. My best guess is that this was, indeed, a prime motivator. Minister Tong proudly declared that the “entire project design, planning and construction were borne by the PPP partners and the structure also allowed the Government to mitigate the risks of such a major project undertaking".
But perhaps therein lies the problem. In trying to offload risks, but still retaining its non-pecuniary objectives, the Government was trying to have its cake and eat it, too. But is this coherent? Was the Government trying to get the private sector to bear the financial risks, and then turning around and insisting that it also accommodates social objectives, instead of just concentrating on the bottom line? And imposing fines for unmet standards that it cannot be expected to meet, would that not further sour the partnership?
Such an approach where the Government can shift risks to the private sector while reaping benefits without active management is, I am afraid, naïve optimism. It is well understood that PPPs are ill-suited for social infrastructure since profit-making and social objectives may frequently diverge. In fact, a study reveals that appropriate risk allocation and sharing is one of the top three critical success factors behind PPP projects in Singapore.
This disconnect was recognised by those involved in the running of the SportsHub. Insiders shared about problems, such as too many potentially conflicting KPIs and stakeholders, excessive top-down oversight with little agency offered to SportsHub management and possibly misaligned goals even among key Government agencies, such as SportsSG, the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board.
And since we do want our country's sports jewel to ignore our nation's sports promotion and community-building activities, having the Government assume both the role of client and controller means that the PPP arrangement was arguably fundamentally untenable to begin with.
Now that the Government has entirely taken over the Sports Hub, it is valuable for us to ask if it plans to ensure that the facility fulfils the aspirations for catalysing Singapore Sport, as we had truly hoped it would, close to a decade and a half ago.
Here, I will pose a series of questions, which I hope the Minister could offer more insight into.
First, how will Government management differ in practice from the PPP model? One reason that the Government offered for pursuing the PPP approach in the first place was that it did not have the expertise. What assures us that it has the expertise now to successfully run a world-class sports and events venue? If it does not – and I am sympathetic to how we should not necessarily expect civil servants to possess such talent – will we then go the route of hiring external experts and, if so, why was this not done in 2008?
More generally, will the Government commit to clear objectives that are aligned in advance among stakeholders?
It strikes me that a consultation process can help us better understand what the public has with regard to a proper and ideal use of the facility since it is meant to inspire local sports participation after all.
Second, how does the Government plan to balance community uses with profitable enterprises? For example, will there be a revision to venue rentals now that the Government has taken over the Sports Hub? In particular, will there be a distinction between commercial rental and community ones? After all, one reason why the substantial takeover fees were paid was ostensibly to remove commercial barriers for local sports promotion.
Minister Tong has already alluded to some of these in his earlier speech under the rubric of ActiveSG and Kallang Alive, including "National School Games, Singapore Youth Festival performances", and possibly even the "National Day Parade". He even hoped for a "return of the casual stroller or jogger to the stadium".
If the concern is understandably the crowding out of commercial returns due to the latter, we could perhaps consider scheduling community use events during clear downtimes when the facilities are not being used. But if, indeed, the Government will not operate the Sports Hub under the same assumptions as SHPL, how much does it expect to incur on an annual basis for operation in the years ahead and how will this differ from the original sums paid to SHPL?
This discussion of numbers naturally leads us to a more careful discussion of sport expenditures in Singapore. To do this, we must step back and scrutinise the budget just a little bit, so that we are working off a common context.
I promise I am not going to circulate any more handouts, but I will quickly summarise. In the latest Budget estimates, SportSG currently accounts for the ongoing expenditures of a little less than $391 million, with development expenditures of close to $123 million. This comes to $514 million. There is a separate budget line for sports programmes, with an operating expenditure of $41 million and development expenditure of $470,000. Taken together, we devote just about $556 million, or half a percent of total fiscal expenditures, to sport.
Of this, the Sports Hub consumed around $57 million in fiscal 2022, in the form of capital grants. There was an extraordinary development expenditure charge of close to $1.4 billion in fiscal 2022, which, presumably, was the upfront termination fee. But there are additional operational costs of $800 million which will have to be incurred through till 2035. I am assuming that these will be accounted for on an annual basis and will show up in the Budget Statements in future, but I am happy to stand corrected if I am incorrect.
If we agree with these numbers, then the next step is to ask if such expenditures should be giving us more bang for the buck.
As it turns out, the general expenditure on recreational and sporting services for the EU as a whole amounted to 0.7% of all general government expenditure, a share very similar to ours. Japan spends a mere 0.02%, and yes, you heard that right, of its government budget on sport. And in Korea, the entire Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism, which notably includes massive expenditures on promoting Korean culture via Hallyu, comes to only 1.3% of the national budget, with sports accounting for just 0.3%.
Yet, these countries have performed more admirably on the international sporting stage than we have, even taking into account their larger populations. Ironically, we are ranked the best in the world for a sport, tchoukball, that does not have a national association. For another sport without a recognised national association, dodgeball, Singapore is sixth or seventh.
But all this applies at the micro level as well, which is why the Sports Hub example is illuminating. The poor management of sports facilities is merely symptomatic of a more general inefficiency of public spending in sports, which, in turn, not only contributed to a failure of the PPP, but spills over into poorer sporting outcomes as well.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, the remainder of the Workers' Party Members will speak to different elements to help flesh out this debate. Both Dennis Tan and Faisal Manap will speak about football. This is not quite the overkill that it seems to be since, as mentioned earlier, football is a sport that almost every Singaporean connects with.
They will also deal with different aspects: Mr Tan on how we can revitalise our Singapore Premier League, starting from the grassroots level; and Mr Faisal on how we can help our Singapore National team recover from its current malaise.
But sport goes beyond soccer. So, Mr Leon Perera will go on to highlight some less celebrated sports, although along the way, he will also speak more generally about how our sports ecosystem may be strengthened. Mr Gerald Giam will do likewise, offering ideas on tweaking the local youth ecosystem to help improve our odds of sporting success in the international arena. And Ms He Ting Ru will, similar to Leon, speak about inclusion in our sporting system, including the disabled and those who are not necessarily participating at the highest levels of sporting competition.
Finally, Ms Sylvia Lim will speak about how, to do well in sport, we must also take care of our ex-athletes even after they retire. In doing so, we not only provide them with the security of knowing that our country has their back when they compete, but even after they do, which, in turn, allows them to push themselves before they even start. It also speaks to how, as a society, we should be taking care of all segments of our society, even when those segments may have faded away from the public limelight.
I look forward as well to all the other contributions from Members of this House, in what I expect to be a lively debate on how we can take Singapore sports to its next level.
*Question proposed.*
Mr Faisal Manap.
Madam, I second and support the Motion moved by my hon colleague, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, "That this House celebrates the accomplishments of our athletes and para-athletes at the recent 32nd SEA Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia, and calls on the Government to undertake a thorough evaluation of the areas of improvement in Singapore's sporting ecosystem, and commit to realising clear, achievable goals for sporting success over the coming decade."
The recent 32nd SEA Games and 12th ASEAN Para Games which were held in Cambodia saw the participation of Singapore's contingent, with a strength of 558 athletes competing in 30 sports and 26 athletes in six sports, respectively. At the SEA Games, our Team Singapore had bagged a total of 158 medals: 51 golds, 43 silvers and 64 bronzes. Meanwhile, at the ASEAN Para Games, our Team Singapore had brought back 12 golds, 15 silvers and 17 bronzes, totalling 44 medals.
I salute all our Team Singapore athletes for giving their best, sacrificing time and energy, and for their resilience and endurance in overcoming challenges and obstacles in flying our Singapore flag high. My heartiest congratulations go out to our medal winners for their triumph and bringing pride to our country, also to our national athletes who had bettered their personal bests at the Games as well as those who fought hard against formidable opponents. A big thanks to our Team Singapore's coaches and officials and a deep appreciation to our athletes' families, loved ones and friends for their great support and encouragement in spurring and motivating our athletes.
Madam, in any sporting event, there will be triumphs and defeats. For the 32nd SEA Games and 12th ASEAN Para Games, we celebrated the continued success of our swimmers both at the SEA Games and the Para Games and we rejoiced at the resurgence of runner Shanti Pereira – among other wonderful wins. But there were also moments of despair, in particular, when we saw our football team suffer their heaviest SEA Games loss in decades when they lost 7-0 to Malaysia.
Our footballers' dismal showing at the SEA Games came not long after another crushing disappointment when we limped out of the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Championships 2022 tournament. It felt like rubbing salt to the wound or, in Malay, "sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga", or a double whammy.
Madam, in this speech of mine, I will focus on the circumstances of Singapore Football. I can confidently say that football has the strongest following among Singaporeans as compared to any other sport. Football is also known to be a unifying sport as it brings together the different segments of society, regardless of socio-economic status, race, language and religion. While this is not unique to Singapore, our football culture has its unique characteristics. We have our Kallang Roar and Kallang Wave, named for the location of our former National Stadium, where fans always turned out in droves to support our Lions in every home match when they competed in the Malaysian League and Cup competitions. That experience fostered a sense of our shared bonds and a feeling of oneness and pride of supporting our national teams, as each fan became a part of the Kallang Roar and Wave.
Sadly, Madam, this experience now feels like ancient history. We have not witnessed such exhilarating and tremendous support for our Lions for many years. Many are still painfully waiting for the revival of our Lions, expressing our concerns, sharing views and perspectives, but, regrettably, there are quite a big number who have lost faith and given up after our Lions' poor performance in AFF Championships 2022 and the 32nd SEA Games, followed by two recent uninspiring international friendlies.
Madam, I have, throughout the years, spoken several times in this Chamber on Singapore Football, sharing my perspectives. Speaking in support of this Motion, I would like to again surface mine as well as fellow Singaporeans' observations, concerns, thoughts on the current situation and what can be done for the future of our football. Some of these points are a reiteration and elaboration of what I have said in this Chamber.
Madam, I would like to make it clear that I am neither claiming that I have the solutions to this plight that we are facing, nor do I want to belittle any ongoing efforts in bringing glory back to Singapore. My speech is a small contribution in terms of observations and perspectives in our attempts to Make Singapore Football Great Again.
To begin with, let us look at where Singapore currently stands in the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) rankings. Our men's national team is currently ranked at 158th place. The highest ranking we ever attained was 73rd in 1993, while the lowest is 173rd in 2018 and our average is 127th. At the peak of our FIFA ranking, our men's football national team in 1993 was made up of popular footballers, such as Fandi Ahmad, V Sundramoorthy, Malek Awab, Nazri Nasir, Rafi Ali and other excellent players.
This means that in the three decades since we achieved our highest ranking, we have dropped by a remarkably disappointing 85 places, which is also 31 places below our average. Since we hit bottom in 2018, we improved by 15 places in five years. But this minor improvement is a small consolation for the players and fans who are struggling to understand how we have failed to improve over the years despite all the efforts put in. Our recent results demonstrate that where many other countries in the region have improved, Singapore football has fallen behind.
Madam, the right efforts are needed to formulate the right programmes and approaches to better our football situation. We need to see what had worked and what did not work in the past, so that we can dissect, review, finetune and come up with the best efforts and measures in improving our football.
I believe any changes that need to be made should start with setting of a Goal or Vision for Singapore Football. I believe that both the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) and the Government understand this. In 1998, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong had this vision, Goal 2010, to qualify for the World Cup in that year. We obviously did not make it, but we had a brief glimmer of hope when our junior Lions won third place during the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) hosted in Singapore. That team, coached by former player Kadir Yahaya, seemed to hold promise for a brighter future in Singapore football. I will speak more on that unfulfilled promise later.
More recently, in August 2019, it was reported in the media that the then-Vice President of FAS, Mr Edwin Tong mentioned that, I quote, "FIFA World Cup 2034 will be a realistic goal for Singapore." On this matter, I had asked the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) through a Parliamentary Question in September 2019, as well as in my Committee of Supply (COS) 2020 cut on FAS' strategic plans in achieving this goal. MCCY's replies were that the Ministry was waiting for FAS to advise them on their plans.
Nonetheless, in March 2021, FAS, as reported in the media, shared that the World Cup 2034 is an "aspirational target". Pertaining to World Cup 2034, I would like to seek two clarifications. One, FAS has announced in August 2019 that World Cup 2034 is a realistic goal. Meanwhile, in March 2021, FAS set it as an "aspirational target". Can FAS or MCCY confirm whether it is the former or the latter?
Second, I would like to, once again, ask for updates from FAS or MCCY on the strategic plans in achieving this realistic goal or aspirational target. I note that there are plans to launch an Under-17 league in 2024, and also to train talent scouts, which were announced in May 2023 during a consultation exercise. But surely, there has to be more to the roadmap.
Madam, aspirational targets are well and good, but there also needs to be a healthy dose of reality injected. If we cannot even advance beyond the group stages in regional competitions, making it to the World Cup is nothing short of a fantasy. And even if, by some miracle, we were to meet that unlikely aspirational target, we are likely to be utterly humiliated.
Before we even think about the World Cup, why not we first try to qualify for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup in 2036? Historically, our national football team has participated in the AFC Cup since its inception. However, the only time we have ever qualified for the final round was in 1984 – as the host country. We have never made it past the qualifying rounds on our own steam. Let us set our sights on the AFC Asian Cup and develop a roadmap towards that goal. The roadmap can include milestones, such as winning the AFF Championship and maybe even gold at the SEA Games in a decade. In this manner, there is greater accountability as well. And if we need to revisit the strategy along the way and tweak it here and there, so be it. It is better than setting an aspirational target that is plain unrealistic.
Madam, in any sport, the seeds for success must be sown early. In 2021, FAS announced the introduction of "Unleash The Roar" (UTR). Once again, as I did in my COS 2022 speech, I welcome the small steps that have been taken under the UTR project, such as the setting up of School Football Academies and partnerships with global leaders in football, such as clubs from the Spanish premier La Liga.
This is not the first time that FAS has tried to implement youth development programmes. One example is the Junior Centres of Excellence (JCOEs) which were implemented in 2011. If we go back further, we have the Milo Soccer School. For those who may be too young to remember, the Milo Soccer School was a key youth development programme in the 1980s and 1990s which gave birth to many of our nation's football heroes, among whom are Fandi Ahmad, Nazri Nasir and Lee Man Hon.
So, we know that youth development is not a new idea for Singapore football. But we also have to confront our failures in youth development, despite the investment of time and resources. In 2015, then-FAS technical director Michel Sablon, in a media report, praised JCOEs and mentioned that with further improvement of this programme, he was confident that Singapore's national team can be like Japan's by 2020. Maybe Mr Sablon was being over-enthusiastic in speaking to the media; maybe his sense of optimism was hopelessly misplaced. We may never know.
What we do know is that we have failed to make progress in youth development even after all the programmes that were implemented and even after we appointed several reputable technical directors and coaches. There was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when our football team was on par with the current Asian football powerhouses, such as the Japanese and Korean teams. They have advanced considerably; we have not.
The relative lack of progress suggests that there are factors that hindered the effectiveness of our plans and programmes. These could include failures in the training and development system and the lack of quality in mentoring, coaching and grooming our young talents.
To elaborate this point further, I would like to return to our 2010 Singapore Youth Olympic Games (YOG) team, which I mentioned earlier in my speech. This team created history for our football when they won a bronze medal at the tournament. And they seemed to hold great promise, having also secured a 3-2 victory over the Tottenham Hotspur academy team during the team's two-week camp in England in their preparation for YOG 2010.
The players from that tournament were dubbed a "Golden Generation" not only for achieving a milestone bronze medal at the inaugural event, but also for their exciting style of play. And yet, a review of their fortunes a decade later told a story of a lost generation of footballers. I would like to quote some of these players sharing their woes, which was reported in one of our local online media. First quote: "After the YOG, there was no follow-up… We had no coach and we didn't even have a single training session for seven or eight months". Another quote, "While much was promised, in terms of on-the-ground work, nothing was really done. We were on our own, things soon went downhill, and eventually they forgot about us".
Madam, I am aware that excellence at the youth level does not always translate at the senior level. Nevertheless, I believe we need to pose some hard questions, identify where we have previously gone wrong and rectify these errors as we commit towards a long-term youth development programme that will not lead to another "Golden Generation" turning into a "Lost Generation".
Madam, I mentioned earlier in my speech that Singapore football has its unique features, such as the Kallang Wave and the Kallang Roar. There are other, less positive, unique aspects to Singapore football which we need to address if we are to progress towards success.
I have touched on this issue previously. In 2019, I noted that former national player and coach Fandi Ahmad had made reference to a "unique ecosystem" in Singapore football which he felt was important for the coach of our national team to understand. In response to Fandi's comments, FAS had cited our small population, land constraints and the competing commitments, such as National Service and academics, which our young players have to juggle, compared to their peers globally and regionally, who are more likely to be full-time professionals.
I believe these "unique" factors remain relevant today. In my previous speech, I had called on MCCY, SportSG and FAS to form a unique team to examine how we can leverage these factors to create a more positive ecosystem for our footballers and, in fact, all our athletes.
The issue of National Service has been thoroughly debated in this House and I acknowledge the various allowances for deferment or disruption of National Service obligations which the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) has provided for our athletes competing at a high level. Balancing our defence needs with our sporting aspirations is necessary and possible.
As for our other unique features, I would like to know if the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) has conducted study visits and reviews of countries who face similar population constraints as Singapore and what lessons have been learnt and perhaps implemented into our own development planning. I had cited Iceland, whose football team made it to the 2018 World Cup despite their small population.
Madam, Croatia is another footballing nation that we could also learn from. A country with a population of around four million, it has been achieving great success in international football. The Croatian football team joined FIFA in 1994, ranked 125th. They rose to third place with their first World Cup appearance in 1998, making them the fastest, most volatile ascension in FIFA ranking history as well as the youngest team to ever occupy the top 10 of the world ranking.
Another point I would like to share which could spur our football is about providing better support in terms of employment or career path for our national players upon their retirement from football. I brought this up as I met and spoke to a couple of Singapore's ex-internationals who shared that they do not encourage their children to pursue their dreams to start a football career. When asked why, their short reply, "No future." Their concern is what would become of their children after their short career stint in football. Madam, this is a real and valid concern.
Madam, I am aware that on 23 June 2023, FAS has announced "Players' Concierge" as a platform to serve our national players, both current and former, providing guidance, guiding and equipping them with the necessary tools to prepare for life after football, as remarked by former Singapore international Baihakki Khaizan, who conceived this initiative. Baihakki gave assurance that our aspiring footballers of the next generation would see football as a viable career which does not end once they hang up their boots.
Madam, I laud this initiative and hope that this effort will get the support from all the stakeholders and, in turn, build confidence in our youths as well as their parents of the viability of pursuing a football career.
Madam, the final point I would like to make is to reiterate the call I made in this year's COS which is that FAS and other relevant stakeholders engage in an open conversation, a large scale one similar to our national conversation, with local players and coaches, both current and former, and to add on also local football fans and enthusiasts. The sporadic and occasional closed door consultations FAS has held is of limited value and has the risk of creating an echo chamber.
In May 2023, FAS announced that it will convene a review panel after the dismal performance at the SEA Games. I support this effort. However, I would propose that this review does not only look into our dismal performance at the SEA Games but instead do a review of Singapore football as a whole, a review that will look into making Singapore football great again. And if it means we need to tear down FAS and rebuild from the ground up, so be it.
Madam, I think this proposed effort is worth the time, resources and energy. As I have mentioned in the earlier part of my speech, football is a unifying sport as it brings together the different segments of society regardless of socio-economic status, race, language and religion, making Singapore football great again will bring the revival of Kallang Roar and the Kallang Wave which our nation has been patiently waiting for almost three decades. [Applause.]
Leader of the Opposition.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion on sporting success filed by the Member for Sengkang GRC, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and the Member for Aljunied GRC, Muhammad Faisal bin Abdul Manap.
I also join my Workers' Party colleagues, Members of this House and all Singaporeans in extending our well wishes to Team Singapore athletes who competed at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and the Southeast Asian (SEA) Paralympic Games last month.
At every international sporting event, a few Singaporean athletes stand out. At the last SEA Games, Shanti Pereira's name was on everyone's lips and deservedly so, as she took her place as the fastest sprinter in Southeast Asia. Feng Tianwei's grit was a source of pride for many at her swan song at the last Commonwealth Games.
And there are certainly athletes who wish they could have done better. To these sportsmen and women, I say: failure makes future success even sweeter; so, stay in the fight and know that Singapore will always be rooting for you.
To this end, I want to express my support for the national Under-22 football team which could do with more support from everyone right now. A few results during the SEA Games may have been hard to swallow, but I look forward to Singapore football putting this tournament behind them.
There are a few sports that can unite Singaporeans nationally like football can. We saw that during the 2020 Suzuki Cup semi-final when the Lions, with the team down to eight men, fought hard, despite the odds. In doing so, they earned the respect of so many Singaporeans.
Sportsmen and women have that incredible gift, the ability to lift their compatriots in a way very few expressions of human achievement can. That is the incredible unifying power of sports and why our athletes, regardless of their sport, play a huge role in nation-building and deserve our support and utmost respect.
On a more personal note, I would like to congratulate Aljunied-Hougang Town Councillor, Mr Francis Seet and his daughter Tiffany. Despite starting the sport of fencing only a few years ago, she brought home, as part of the foil team, a gold medal from the recent SEA Games.
Madam, my contribution to this Motion is focused on the resolution of disputes between sports authorities and athletes. I speak with reference to one of my residents, SEA Games silver medalist, Soh Rui Yong, and his non-selection for the upcoming Asian Games in October.
Right off the bat, it is important to recognise that there are certain obligations involved when an athlete competes under the national flag. There are rules to follow. However, as they are highly competitive individuals, it is not unusual to find that sports attract its fair share of the strong-minded and the strong-willed. In fact, this element of their character is sometimes the "X" factor that also pushes them to surpass their opponents.
History is replete with such headstrong characters, such as the great Muhammad Ali, whose showmanship both in and out of the ring and incredible ability combined to define him. To say that he routinely thumbed his nose at authority is probably an understatement. In March 1966, he consciously objected to being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War and earned the ire of those in authority, which he referred to as the "white establishment". His sense of universal justice was captured for posterity in his famous words, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam, while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?"
Arising from his personal stand against the war, he was systematically denied a boxing licence in every state in the US and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight professionally from March 1967 to October 1970, when he was aged 25 to almost 29 – the best years of his sporting life – as his legal battle worked its way through the US criminal justice system until his conviction was overturned in 1971.
In many sports, people wear their hearts on their sleeves. In Singapore's recent past, national footballer Noh Alam Shah was one such individual. Whenever I can, like many Singaporeans, I make it a point to watch the Singapore Lions in action. Noh Alam Shah gave his heart and soul when in national colours. But he had a temperamental side and was involved in violent conduct – conduct which cannot be condoned. Once, he was banned by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) from football for 12 months, with the sentence cut to seven months on appeal.
Passion is not just restricted to athletes. After Singapore's 7-0 loss to Malaysia in football at the last SEA Games, much fan frustration was directed at the management team of FAS. One commentator on Instagram told the current FAS Acting President Bernard Tan to resign. Bernard Tan responded by challenging the individual to meet face-to-face, something he later apologised for.
Given the emotions involved in sport and the popularity of football in Singapore, I can understand Mr Tan's passion, even as it was always going to be matched by some of our long-suffering football fans. We can all accept that sport ignites passions. We win together, we lose together, we celebrate together and we hurt together.
To this end, I wish to speak about the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC)'s non-selection of long distance runner Soh Rui Yong for the upcoming Asian Games.
Rui Yong is the national record holder for the 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres, half marathon and marathon events. My last substantive communication with him was to congratulate him on his performance at the recently concluded SEA Games. Not only did he win silver for the 10,000 metres, he earned plaudits in Singapore and the region for a spontaneous display of sportsmanship, passing his own cup of water to his Indonesian opponent, whom he was in neck-to-neck with, when the Indonesian dropped his water bottle.
Prior to the last SEA Games, Rui Yong was left out of the SEA Games by the SNOC in 2019 and 2022 for disciplinary reasons, when he was at the prime of his athletic life. He had previously won the gold medal for Singapore in the marathon at the SEA Games, both in 2015 and 2017. His latest non-selection will seriously curtail his ability to run and medal for Singapore ever again. Unlike fixed term suspensions for violent conduct or criminal offences, SNOC's blanket non-selection forces his sporting career into limbo for an unknown period.
From publicly available information, the latest non-selection for the Asian Games is a result of public comments he made online. Thirty-six pages of documents allegedly leaked to The Straits Times detailed posts and comments that SNOC took issue with. According to a Rice Media article dated 17 June this year which was titled, "Soh Rui Yong isn't perfect and he should not have to be", Rui Yong responded to SNOC's objection by removing the post in question. This did not placate SNOC and he was still not selected.
The same article says that Rui Yong was not given a chance to clarify his post before the SEA Games' Appeals Committee. He was quoted as saying, "I look forward to proving myself on the track and I hope the Committee would see sense in putting me on the team for the Asian Games. And on my part, I also endeavour to be more careful."
The Olympic Charter states that National Olympic Committees' selection of athletes shall not just be based on sporting performance, but an ability to serve as an example to the sporting youths of one's country. I wish to restate that it is not unreasonable for SNOC to expect our sportsmen and women to exhibit discipline. SNOC must have the authority to bar athletes after a disciplinary panel has heard the affected athlete out, consistent with the principles of natural justice. But I ask that SNOC take a more forgiving attitude towards Soh Rui Yong.
Indeed, SNOC has a track record of forgiving athletes that have fallen short of being examples for our sporting youths and allowed them to compete for Singapore.
For example, a Silat exponent was allowed to represent Singapore at the last SEA Games despite a drink-driving conviction in 2022; a swimmer who had won a silver medal at the last SEA Games had previously been disciplined for consuming controlled drugs and had his prestigious spexScholarship suspended for one month.
Both these athletes were involved in criminal offences. Soh Rui Yong has not been. So, why is SNOC's attitude towards Rui Yong different?
The core of the schism between SNOC and Rui Yong appears to be a spat that arose when Rui Yong challenged the SNOC's nomination of another athlete for an International Sportsman award. Rui Yong disputes the nomination as a matter of principle, I would think, and he disagrees with the facts put forward.
A very senior SNOC figure testified in a civil trial against Rui Yong and senior management figures in Singapore sports had made online posts criticising Rui Yong's actions.
There is a widespread belief that the latest non-selection is a carry-over of that original spat. One cannot help but feel that things have turned personal, with SNOC taking a far stronger stand against Rui Yong, compared to other athletes who have committed transgressions as if to teach him a lesson for his outspokenness.
The current impasse makes everyone look like who they are really not. SNOC has done much work in promoting Singapore sports, bringing sponsors on board and raising the esteem of sports in the minds and hearts of Singaporeans and many parents in a very big way.
But in the eyes of many Singaporeans, on the Soh Rui Yong matter, SNOC, as the highest sporting body in Singapore, comes out looking petty, even as many also believe that Rui Yong needs to learn from the past and draw a line and focus on his sporting career.
It is time to move on from the previous episode involving the lawsuit and I hope the Ministry officials, if not the Minister-in-charge of sports, can intercede to prevent parties from reaching a point where Singapore sport cuts off its nose to spite its own face.
I believe that politicians should not be directly involved in sports and, when they do get involved, it would be for such purposes – as a facilitator to raise the profile of our sports and sportsmen, generating support from corporates, society and parents, and to bring some much-needed wisdom and equanimity into disputes, such as those involving Rui Yong and SNOC.
For their part, I am of the view that our sports administrators can afford to take an elevated approach as they have done in the past and be more big-hearted, especially when you consider their collective seniority and contributions to Singapore sports.
To begin with, a more enlightened and mature approach from all but, particularly SNOC – which does not just hold all the cards but is, clearly, the party in which the power relationship between athlete and state representation resides – can make a massive difference.
I hope this matter can be brought to an amicable resolution with better engagement by a mediator from the Ministry. I ask the Minister to take the initiative and support my call.
Our sporting ecosystem is strengthened when we focus on sporting values, sportsmanship and bringing glory to Singapore.
I support the Motion filed by Member for Sengkang Jamus Lim and Member for Aljunied Muhamad Faisal Manap.
Dr Wan Rizal.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, today, I stand before you, filled with pride and admiration for our athletes and para-athletes, their respective coaching and support teams who surpassed expectations in the last SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia. Their tenacity and determination embody the Singapore Spirit, a nation that, indeed, punches above its weight.
Sports, as I impart them to my students, are a mirror that reflects a nation's vitality. It unveils the determination, unity and resilience within us – serving as a source of national pride and a catalyst for community cohesion.
Reflecting on my journey, first as an athlete, then as a Physical Education teacher, then as a Sports Science lecturer, and now as a Member of Parliament, I have seen the transformational powers of sports. It is in the joyful shouts and cries of children playing in the school fields and school halls, the tense moments as you await your race in the track and field competition, that community spirit, that feel that you get at a sports competition.
Sports bring us together, teach us about resilience and inspire us to push our boundaries. Our sporting ecosystem should, therefore, be perceived not merely as a conveyor belt for medals, prospects but as a vibrant platform that unites us.
Community sports are the cornerstone of our sporting ecosystem. Our champions, like Fandi Ahmad, Joseph Schooling and Shanti Pereira, amongst many others, first kindled their passion and honed their skills within the confines of our schools, our local sporting facilities and community centres.
The National School Games serve as a crucial platform for fostering this development. This annual competition incites the competitive spirit among our young athletes and provides an early stage for talent identification.
But the significance of community sports surpasses the discovery of sporting talent. It cultivates a sporting culture permeating our society, bolsters social cohesion and instils a shared sense of identity and pride.
When children pass the baton in a relay race or collaborate in a game of sepak takraw, they are not merely playing; they are acquiring teamwork, discipline and resilience.
A second area of focus should be the provision of support for emerging sports that resonate with our youth, such as floorball and tchoukball. These unconventional sports introduced in schools are gaining traction due to their dynamic and inclusive nature. Despite their growing popularity, these sports often do not receive the same level of support or recognition as more traditional sports.
Madam, sports play a significant role in our mental health, too. They serve as an important vehicle for stress relief and mood improvement, especially among our youths. But we must acknowledge and address the mental health challenges faced by our athletes, too, who often deal with immense pressure. This underlines the need for a well-resourced sporting ecosystem and justifies further backing for community sports and emerging sports. In doing so, we are not just nurturing future champions but investing in the mental health of our population.
To strengthen community sports, I propose that our Government continue to invest in local sports facilities and increase funding for coaching programmes at the community level. And our national "Unleash the Roar!" project speaks to this, in the context of football. To uplift the standards of Singapore football, we need to first grow a broad base of participation.
Our children have many options to play football today, even though our void decks are out of bounds due to safety – our school fields, our halls, the parks, the School Football Academies, ActiveSG Football Academy, Singapore Sports School, private clubs and academies – they are all available.
From this broad base, we need to systematically identify the best talent for further development. In that regard, it is important that we equip our coaches and scouts to do this well. Identified talents need to undergo structured training and development. They need to compete regularly and at the right levels. I look forward to the setting up of the national and junior football development centres to provide such structured opportunities for training and competition.
At the same time, we also need a high-level competitive league that our local young players, as well as the best players from the region, aspire towards. And this is where I come to the Singapore Premier League (SPL). Sadly, the matches are no longer as lively as they used to be and I urge the relevant parties to review what more can be done for the SPL.
Madam, beyond football, what we must continue to do is nurture the love for sports, unearth potential talents and champions and, in line with Healthier SG, build a healthier, more resilient Singapore.
To me, sporting success extends beyond the medals we secure on international platforms; it is deeply rooted in the strength and vibrancy of our community sports culture. It is about nurturing unity, fostering resilience and creating a platform for everyone to maximise their potential.
Madam, please allow me to borrow a concept from the dynamical systems theory, which suggests that our journey to sporting success must not be confined to a single path. There is no linear or predetermined process for success. It is a dynamic process, constantly shaped and reshaped by multiple factors. It emerges from the interaction of the individuals, that is, our athletes; the task, which is the sports they are in; and the environment, which is the community.
In that regard, "Success is an emergent property of the interaction between an athlete and their community itself." And as we venture into the next decade, let us embrace this dynamic, interdependent relationship within our sporting ecosystem.
Madam, despite the compelling reservations and suggestions I have outlined, I lend my support to the Motion, albeit with some notable reservations: firstly, it is in the oversight of the indispensable role our communities play in our sporting journey; secondly, it does not fully align with the more encompassing perspective that I hold personally of what sporting success means and what I advocate for.
In my view, sporting success transcends the accumulation of medals on the international stage and is a multifaceted achievement that encompasses community involvement, personal growth and the manifold benefits that ripple through our society.
We are, indeed, on the right path, but we must make a conscious effort to ensure that our journey is both encompassing and enriching – cherishing every aspect of our sporting ecosystem from grassroots participation to international acclaim.
This is not just about sports. It is about shaping a resilient, inclusive society. It is about the dreams we foster, the communities we build and the nation we envision. It is about the very essence of who we are and who we aspire to be. In this pursuit, let us remember: our goal is not to conquer the field, but to conquer the odds.
Mr Dennis Tan.
Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I support the Motion as moved by my hon colleague and Member of Parliament for Sengkang GRC, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, "that this House celebrates the accomplishments of our athletes and para-athletes at the recent 32nd SEA Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia, and calls on the Government to undertake a thorough evaluation of the areas of improvement in Singapore's sporting ecosystem, and commit to realising clear, achievable goals for sporting success over the coming decade."
Indeed, I join my colleagues and Members of the House in congratulating our athletes and para-athletes at the recent SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia. I would also like to congratulate all the athletes from Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC) for their achievements and thank them for their hard work and dedication.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I share the same concerns and agree with what my hon colleague, Member for Aljunied GRC Faisal Manap, has stated in his speech. In addition to the points he has made, I also have a few suggestions.
Singapore is, indeed, a football-mad nation. We have a massive following of European football and many in Singapore have a favourite English Premier League team or a European club.
Many Singaporeans were disappointed with the results of our football team at the SEA Games, and we saw much outpouring of emotions by many. Many of us wondered how we have gotten to where we are today. However, beyond the disappointment and frustrations, I believe there is national will to see Singapore football succeed and we want to support our players and coaches to improve and succeed.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, we can do better by starting with the basic and building a suitable sporting ecosystem to harness this passion to improve Singapore football. I believe we can do more to increase accessibility to the sport and, therefore, cultivating a larger pool of talents and increase buy-in from Singaporeans.
To begin with, I think it is important to develop a broader base of talent. I would like to suggest that more efforts be directed to the lower football leagues to encourage better participation and to improve quality in such leagues.
According to the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Annual Report for 2022, Singapore Premier League (SPL) clubs received $8,896,804 in grants while FAS' total expenses for SPL amounted to $13,669,626, inclusive of the state grants.
In comparison, FAS had only incurred combined expenses of $147,404 for the Singapore Football League Divisions 1 and 2, together with Women's Football, inclusive of the Women's Domestic League.
While we can understand why there may be some disparities, I think FAS can still do more to invest in its own lower football leagues or what FAS described as "domestic football leagues" in its notes to their financial statements for Financial Year 2022.
I hope FAS can do more to generate interest, increase participation and improve standards. There should be more equitable distribution for these lower grassroots leagues under FAS to provide a larger pool of talent for SPL clubs as well as for our national team. If such grassroots football leagues had even one-fifth of such resources dedicated to them, the conditions and levels of grassroots football can improve drastically.
For example, clubs can have more budget for training spaces and coaches or even simpler things like having more balls for matches and decent insurance coverage for their players.
Still on the issue of the funding of SPL clubs, which I have mentioned earlier, I would also like to suggest that such funding may be a two-edged sword. While it is encouraging that clubs can afford to pay their players and keep the lights on, it appears to have its drawbacks in other aspects.
Firstly, SPL clubs are not reliant on fans for income, unlike most clubs around the world. So, there is no pressing need to market themselves, to reach out to new fans and cultivate a strong fanbase to support each club.
Next, football fans want to support teams that have history and identity. For example, Futbol Club (FC) Barcelona attracts fans with a tiki-taka brand of football, and even a club like Stoke City, which garnered a cult following in 2010 with their physical brand of football.
While having a common pool of funds for the club is good on paper, it may, in fact, dilute the identity factor.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I submit that clubs should be further encouraged to build their own identity, branding, following and fanbase. In fact, this may, in turn, improve their advertising and sponsorship income. Another possible solution is to earmark specific funds for purposes, such as marketing, merchandising and ticket subsidies. Another suggestion is to gradually reduce the general funding over a longer period of time, say, 10 years, to encourage clubs to find diverse revenue streams.
Earlier, I mentioned the disparity of funding between SPL and SFL clubs. Perhaps, we can increase competition and standards at the SPL as well as at the SFL by reintroducing the prospects of promotion and relegation.
For example, the bottom one or two SPL clubs will be automatically relegated, to be replaced by, say, the top one or two clubs in the SFL. This would encourage greater competition among all clubs at all levels and enhance quality, standards, participation and interest at all levels. It will drive clubs in lower leagues to improve their standards and seek promotion to the SPL. It will discourage complacency for clubs at the SPL level as they cannot take their higher grant or income stream for granted.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I believe more can be done about the street football culture, or the lack thereof, in Singapore. Many household names that football fans of all ages recognise, started out with street football – from Diego Maradona to Johan Cruyff and, perhaps more recently, players like Ronaldinho, Wayne Rooney or Cristiano Ronaldo.
Many Singaporeans of different generations would remember playing football at void decks or even on grass patches in the kampung. How has our street football culture developed over the decades?
Our street football culture in Singapore has been curtailed by the lack of space. In the earlier years, perhaps we had a unique void deck football culture when neighbours of even both genders would come together to have a kickabout. That was a uniquely Singapore football culture.
Many remember void deck football fondly. It was near home, it was sheltered, so people can play, rain or shine, and it has many pre-made goal posts or teammates in the form of pillars.
However, as our municipal management culture made advances, "No Football" signs would dampen the playing of football at void decks, and understandably so, in consideration of safety, cleanliness and noise, before HDB eventually stopped building suitably sized void decks in our HDB blocks in the past 20 years.
There are, of course, commercial futsal courts appearing in the past 20 years as an alternative, such as The Cage and The Rainforest, but these have their own barriers. It is impractical for primary school children to travel to these places alone with their friends, fork out the money and organise their own matches. Even for many adults, the travel and the need to look for sufficient teammates make this a rather formal affair that requires a high degree of organisation instead of the pick-up games in the neighbourhood.
While there are designated street courts in some neighbourhoods, the weather in Singapore is an active deterrent for play during the afternoon, which is when many children may have their free time after school or homework.
Perhaps, we can revive the void deck football culture in a more modern manifestation by recreating the conditions that made void deck football so inviting – the close proximity to home, the shelter from the rain and the sun, and the ease of access. Perhaps, SportSG can fund the building of roof shelters at neighbourhood street courts and the building of sheltered street courts on the top levels of some of the multi-storey car parks.
Next, FAS can also do more to encourage having more five- or seven-a-side games or tournaments for youth football. Five- or seven-a-side games or tournaments, together with the necessary skills training, may be especially appropriate for youth football, such as for those aged 16 and below, before the players' full physical maturity. This has been recognised by footballing powerhouses, such as England, Germany, even FIFA and, locally, at FAS.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, we also need to support and improve our youth pipeline for footballing talent.
Under the current Unleash The Roar! initiative, it is laudable that FAS has continued to identify talents who are under eight to under 15. However, this comes at the risk of leaving behind late developers who cannot match their peers physically earlier on. They do not have the same opportunity or access to resources as their peers who hit puberty earlier.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, this is relevant in youth football, as this disparity in physical ability will mean earlier developers will rely on physical attributes rather than developing their skills or technical know-how to perform.
One possible solution is to adopt the concept of bio-banding by classifying youths according to predicted height and weight – also known as the Khamis-Roche method – rather than by age. This has been used by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team to create success. This has also been used in the English Premier League (EPL).
Studies have shown that bio-banding results in a more technical and challenging game. I will submit that adopting bio-banding will further complement the current youth development programme's emphasis on improving tactical and technical skills.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, amidst the passionate debate and positive suggestions and critiques we have heard in this House so far as Members share their minds in this debate, we would do well to remind ourselves to support and also to trust our football professionals, coaches, managers, players, former players and trained experts to make the right decisions and not take over the decision-making from them accidentally through our enthusiasm.
While researching in preparation for this speech, I was reminded that even FIFA themselves set in stone rules that enforce this. Article 17.1 of the FIFA Statutes states that "Each Member shall manage its affairs independently and with no influence from third parties."
To illustrate by way of suggestions or examples – providing the funding to hire youth coaches but not be involved in interviewing the coaches themselves and rather to leave the professionals to make the decisions; providing space for grassroots football but not dictate the rules of the leagues. We have many illustrious experts in the field and we need to trust them to bring Singapore football to the next level.
In conclusion, I hope for a stronger, broader grassroots and youth development infrastructure for Singapore football that will let more Singaporeans enjoy the beautiful game while improving the talent pool in the long run. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion.
Mr Leon Perera.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I rise to support the Motion proposed by my hon friends, Sengkang GRC Member of Parliament, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, and Aljunied GRC Member of Parliament, Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap, on Singapore sports.
We owe a profound debt of gratitude to our athletes who proudly fly the Singapore flag in tournaments like the SEA Games and Para Games. They have sacrificed through their long hours of training and through rising to the challenge of intensely competitive sports where they might face the agony of defeat as easily as the thrill of victory.
For our athletes, we must not only be passive spectators. We must, on occasions like this Parliamentary Sitting, honour them with the respect they deserve for their efforts.
But as we honour and respect our athletes for what they have done in the past, we must be bold to set ambitious goals for the nation's sporting future. This speaks to the second part of the Motion by Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Faisal Manap. We must strive to enhance our sports ecosystem such that our athletes will find sports a rewarding and sustainable career and that there can be a thriving, commercially attractive ecosystem for other stakeholders, including commercial sponsors and advertisers.
Madam, in my speech, I will touch on a few themes: firstly, setting national goals for what we want to achieve in the sporting arena; secondly, uplifting sports that are less well-known and celebrated than, say, football; thirdly, investing enough and early enough in talent; lastly, creating a commercially viable sports ecosystem.
First of all, Madam, what kinds of goals do we want to set for sports nationally? For every country, there would always be a tension across various goals, for example, cultivating peaks of excellence versus encouraging mass participation, or shining the spotlight on our local athletes while also seeking economic benefits from global leagues and foreign athletes and teams.
I will argue that such goals are not mutually exclusive and sufficient weight can be given to disparate goals. I would argue that we should embrace four goals for Singapore sports at the national level.
Firstly, to achieve and celebrate excellence in sports in general. This means providing a baseline of support, encouragement and publicity for all sportspersons, including para sportspersons, spanning both those who are successful and those who are less so.
Secondly, to focus state resources most on those sports where we can feasibly achieve regional and global excellence as well as in football, which has a unique, exceptional significance from the standpoint of heritage, national pride and the potential for bonding. To do justice to those resources, such efforts have to involve regular, hard-nosed reviews of the successes and failures of past policy, such as what my colleague Mr Faisal Manap called for earlier in the context of FAS.
Thirdly, to apply our communications machinery to highlight our athletes' success and inspire mass participation in sports, which has health and many other benefits.
Fourthly, to convert that mass interest and participation deriving from sporting excellence into a vibrant business ecosystem whereby the sports industry and its athletes can derive a larger share of revenues from the private sector. This last goal is particularly important if we want to make the sports industry sustainable and attractive to athletes, other sports industry professionals and commercial participants versus being an excessively Government-dependent industry.
The last goal is probably where we need the most work. We have to attract strong audiences and spending, which, in turn, will attract commercial sponsorship, participation and advertising, which, in turn, can generate the money needed to spark more excellence, in a virtuous cycle. It does not make sense to speak of a commercial strategy when there is no audience interest. The horse has to come before the cart.
Madam, in the second part of my speech, I will talk about uplifting our national efforts in less well-known sports. Sports like football, badminton, tennis and golf, for example, have a mass audience worldwide and command strong interest in Singapore, too. However, there are less well-known sports where Singaporean athletes have achieved great results regionally and even globally.
One important thrust in our sporting efforts should be to focus on those sports where Singapore has done well so as to focus support on our athletes there so that they sustain and surpass their achievements, analyse and act on the reasons for that success, have our National Sports Associations (NSAs) engage these top performers aggressively to be coaches, advisors and role models to inspire others to take up the sport, and stimulate media coverage and draw more attention and audience numbers to these less well-known sports.
Where we have strong national champions in a sport, there lies the basis for stimulating audience interest and, thus, bring in commercial participation on the back of that.
I am not claiming that nothing has been done by the Government for these less well-known sports, but I am arguing for a more aggressive approach of using our resources to study our regional and world-class athletes in these sports, try to spark more people entering these sports, focus more of our funding dollars on such sports where we are really good and draw more attention and interest to these sports, not only the famous ones.
Let me touch on some examples of sports that are less well-known but where Singaporean athletes have done well regionally or globally.
Firstly, let me talk about darts. We have a national champion in this sport. Paul Lim is recognised as one of the best darts players in the world. His story is an interesting one, the story of a person fuelled by passion without necessarily having the backing of resources.
In a story in TODAY Online from 2017, Paul recounted that in the early part of his journey in darts, he struggled. "I decided to quit my job and go to work on the American circuit. I worked part-time as a chef from Monday to Thursday, then from Friday to Sunday, I would play tournaments. For my first two years, I had no sponsors and I depended on my savings and my job."
Paul excels in the soft-tip darts world, which he picked up two decades ago. Soft-tips are plastic which allows for the scoring to be done automatically. Matches can be played online via the electronic dartboards. This makes it more player-friendly, which, in turn, draws a huge younger crowd that is willing to spend.
In the same article, Paul noted that the soft-tip darts scene has exploded in Singapore, too. He estimated that there were around 20,000 players here. "Singapore has one of the most lucrative and active darts scenes in the world," he said. But agitation creeps into his voice when the state of the local steel-tip scene is brought up. "I feel really angry," he said, and I am quoting from the article here.
This is from Paul: "We could have been growing in the steel-tip (competitions) too, but it's just that the people who ran the (Singapore) Darts Association, for the last 10 years have run it to the ground." We used to send teams to the World Cup, organise the Singapore Open, Pesta Sukan, had a great league system. It was great in the early days. "We have good players … but they can't go nowhere, that's a shame, really."
Without an association to be affiliated with, players are unable to represent Singapore internationally. Lim revealed that he and Harith – "Singapore's best steel-tip player" – owed their participation in the PDC World Cup to a personal invitation from organisers.
Madam, there used to be a Singapore Darts Association. I tried to find out if an NSA for darts still exists and it does not appear that one does. I am aware that SportSG does provide support for athletes in sports where there is no NSA, but it begs the question why there is no NSA and more concerted efforts in a field like darts, where we have world-class athletes and, hence, the potential to build on that.
Next, let me talk about e-sports, an industry at the early stages of growth world-wide. Indeed, Singapore recently hosted the world's top tournament in this sport – the International 2022 – with a prize pool of above S$25 million. Given the tremendous commercial potential for this sport, it deserves the kind of close analysis of success and targeted support that I spoke about. I am glad that there is an NSA for this sport, unlike darts.
In fact, in e-sports, Singapore won a SEA Games gold medal for Valorant, albeit not without some controversy.
This is a sport deserving of more media attention and one where our top performers can hopefully get support in attracting emulators. In fact, it is telling that a Yahoo News article from 2021 said that "Unlike Olympic athletes, our e-sports heroes don't usually get prime time coverage in the media".
Two names worthy of mention here are Daryl "iceiceice" Koh and Ho Kun Xian, who is known simply as Xian. They are some of Singapore's best e-sports athletes that have been champions of multiple globally renowned competitions with the biggest significant tournament earnings in their careers. Daryl reportedly made over US$1.7 million in tournament earnings alone last year, excluding salary and sponsorships. Is the support they receive from the Government proportionate to their sporting success and are determined efforts being made to build a viable ecosystem, with new players entering who are inspired by these greats?
Also, e-sports refers to a collection of various games with different publishers. There are different titles, such as DotA, CSGO, Fortnite, Call of Duty and so on.
I would like to ask – how does Singapore choose to support specific e-sports titles? Why does the Singapore E-Sports Association limit its support only to certain games?
While Singapore has recently won a SEA Games medal for Valorant, why was there no representation for other games, such as DotA 2 and CSGO, which have not only some of the biggest prize pools globally but have also hosted huge events in Singapore, such as the International, and have a large and devoted local fan base?
Next, let me move to powerlifting. On 6 June 2022, Singaporean Farhanna Farid set a world record in the open U-52kg deadlift at the World Open Classic Powerlifting Championships in Sun City. She achieved 200.5 kilogrammes, ahead of Noemie Allabert and Shizuka Rico.
The brothers Matthew and Marcus Yap have also managed a string of achievements in powerlifting. In 2017, Matthew set a powerlifting squat world record, 215.5 kilogrammes, in the Under-66kg sub-junior category at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championships.
And yet, in 2017, Matthew and Marcus had to crowdfund plane tickets home after missing their flight from Minsk, Belarus, where they were participating in a competition where Matthew had set a new world squat record. They did not receive any funding from SportSG because powerlifting does not, or did not, have an NSA, though having said that, an official at the then Powerlifting Singapore helped them to start the crowdfunding campaign and Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the airline to lower the fare for both of them.
According to Ms Daphne Loo of Powerlifting Singapore as reported in an article in The Straits Times, "Having worked 10-hour shifts at a Korean eatery and saving their allowances just to be able to make this trip to Belarus to compete, there was no way they could afford a flight back. They had already spent $5,500 for the chance to win the World Record," Ms Loo wrote.
The article said that as Powerlifting Singapore was then not an NSA, there is no funding to send athletes overseas. Even today, there still remains uncertainty about the sport and the funding they can expect to receive from governing bodies, as reported in a September 2022 article in TODAY.
Next, let me move to cuesports, starting with billiards. We have a world-class athlete in Peter Gilchrist, who won the World Billiards Championship (English billiards) in 1994, 2001, 2013 (long format) and 2019. Peter was a two-time Sportsman of the Year in Singapore.
We also have Aloysius Yapp, who was the world junior champion in nine-ball in 2014 and runner-up in the 2021 US Open Pool Championship. In 2022, Aloysius won a bronze medal at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, for nine-ball. He reached No 1 in the world rankings in 2021. I note that Cuesport Singapore has received some Government funding.
There are a number of other lesser-known sports where we have great talent in Singapore and where more can be done to capitalise on that talent. In the interest of time, I cannot delve deep into all these, but I will refer to them briefly.
In sailing, Cecilia Low and Kimberley Lim came in as the top Asian team at the Olympics, also winning one race where 21 countries competed – an Olympic first. Our sailors also won three of the nine gold medals on offer at this year's SEA Games in Cambodia.
In bowling, Singaporean Cherie Tan was named World Bowling Athlete of the Year by the World Bowling Association in 2019. Shayna Ng won the International Bowling Federation Super World Championships women's singles title in 2021.
As my hon friend Assoc Prof Jamus Lim mentioned, we also do well in tchoukball and dodgeball, being among the top 10 in the world, even though these sports do not have NSA-level recognition and support.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, to conclude this part of my speech, I would like to pull together the threads of my key arguments on less well-known sports.
We clearly have some outstanding talent in less well-known sports at the global or regional level, people like Aloysius Yapp and Peter Gilchrist in billiards, Paul Lim in darts, “iceiceice” and Xian in e-sports, Farhana Farid and the Yap brothers in powerlifting, and Shayna Ng and Cherie Tan in bowling, for example.
We ought to apply ourselves to do a few things as a country in regard to these lesser-known sports.
Firstly, provide proper funding and support to our athletes in these less well-known sports with NSA backing, to enable them to keep winning for Singapore.
Secondly, we should channel more efforts towards raising the profile of these sports and sportspersons – and we have successful sportspersons here to do that – so as to boost audience interest and attract new entrants into these sports, with these world-class athletes being role models and possibly future coaches and advisors to the NSAs.
Thirdly, our sports administration professionals at SportSG and the NSAs should try to unpack the reasons why we have such top talents, remove unnecessary layers of bureaucracy where it is called for, and help tweak our ecosystem to replicate such factors more broadly – the availability of certain types of training or attachment opportunities abroad, for example.
Next, Mdm Deputy Speaker, I will move on to the third part of my speech, which is on identifying top talent that can perform at the highest levels in the region and the world at an early stage. What else can we do to make sure we are identifying such talent early and supporting them with the resources that are necessary to achieve excellence in competitive sports today?
In contrast to the ancient Greek Olympic ideal – and perhaps disappointingly some might say – sporting excellence these days is, to a considerable extent, a function of financial investment in the best coaches, research and analytics, equipment, sports medicine doctors, sports massage therapists, even sports psychologists and so on.
Can we identify early and invest more in the handful of those Singaporeans who are truly talented and have the potential to be world-class or at least tops in the region?
It is well-known that the cost of Joseph Schooling's intense training in the USA prior to winning an Olympic Gold medal for Singapore was well over $1 million – well over. I suspect that not many Singaporean families have that amount to spend or would be willing to spend that on a sporting career for their children if they did.
In the case of Joseph Schooling, he did receive state funding, but this came later in his career, after he had already started getting some good results in the US. As his uncle Max wrote in a public post quoted in a Mothership article:
"His travel was not paid for by "state money" but by his parents. His fees at a very expensive school – chosen because it was a school that specialised in combining academic and sporting excellence in swimming – were paid for not by "state money" but by his parents. His accommodation in North Florida was not paid for by "state money" but by his parents. The same source of "money" was what paid for his specialist coaches, his trips to various competitions and so on."
In fact, according to Max, state money began to flow only very late in the game.
As Joseph himself said in a TODAY article from 2016, "[There is] [a]bsolutely not (enough financial support). Which parent should have to pay over US$1 million out of their own pocket to help their kid succeed? Multi-million-dollar Awards Programme is really nice if you hit the target, but without support and funding, how do you hit those goals?"
In an interview with CNA in November last year, Joseph said, "As far as financial support goes, I definitely think the associations can do a better job. We don't really have much funding."
There is a bit of chicken-and-egg problem here. State funding can be attracted if good results are achieved but to get good results requires funding at an early age. We need to solve this chicken-and-egg problem.
I am aware that there are scholarships available, like the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship and the NUS Sports Scholarship. But SportSG and the NSAs should give serious thought to how truly talented athletes can be identified and funded early enough in their careers to achieve their full potential, with funding calibrated to potential.
Here, we should direct funding drawn not only from the state but also philanthropic donors as well as corporate sponsors.
But we need to place our bets well. In doing this, we need rigorous, scientific early-stage identification of potentially amazing athletes. Do we currently have a good enough infrastructure and system to spot amazing talent at an early age?
After all, the science of sports has advanced a great deal. There is now significant academic and published literature on how future potential can be predicted to a considerable extent by performance metrics and facts determined scientifically at an early age. This is something SportSG should strive to do and discuss more openly.
For example, are our sports teachers primed with the necessary training to identify revealing predictive metrics and to be able to escalate such cases for national attention? Are they trained to differentiate someone with the potential to become truly great as opposed to just above average? If such training is not practicable, can there be a centralised cadre of talent scouts who have such training, who can be called in to evaluate individuals or who visit schools proactively for observation?
I note that for many professional sports in the US and Europe, there is literally a professional vocation known as talent scout. These professionals are highly trained, held to clear KPIs and fly around extensively to spot talent. Do we have a system for doing this?
Mdm Deputy Speaker, the last part of my speech will be on the business aspects of the sports industry. If we succeed in attracting audience numbers and companies to certain sports where we do well, we will also need business managers who know how to optimise the business ecosystem to make it attractive and sustainable.
Are we doing enough to train a cadre of professionals who have the necessary sports business management and marketing skillsets? Can we attract Singaporeans who have an interest in this field to take up sponsored training abroad, or perhaps attract foreign professionals in the short term, aiming for some skills transfer, perhaps using ONE Pass, for example?
Such skills and best practices are available in abundance in countries like the US and the UK, where sports are, in many cases, a thriving, profitable, multi-billion-dollar industry. If you look at the US Superbowl, for example, sometimes, the commercial advertisements compete with the on-field athletic performances for public attention.
This is important if we want to make the sports industry sustainable and attractive to athletes and other sports professionals and administrators on the financial level, as opposed to being a government-dependent industry where one is expected to sacrifice financial sustainability for love of sport. There must be enough money in the ecosystem to attract and retain good people.
In contrast, there are certain types of artistic and creative activity where it is hard to achieve full commercial viability anywhere in the world – symphony orchestras, for example, and certain types of classical art forms, museums and so on. In these industries, state funding will probably remain key, though, even here, efforts can be made to draw in philanthropic donations.
But in sports, commercial viability is not a futile goal, as examples around the world demonstrate.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, in conclusion, with this Motion, the Workers' Party hopes to spark a national conversation on the future of sport in Singapore – what we want to achieve and how we are going to achieve it.
I trust the debate today will generate many useful discussions and will spark public participation in the conversation. We need the Singaporean people to wholeheartedly shape and thus support our sporting directions and to walk with our sporting stakeholders to make the future for sports and our sportspersons in Singapore better than the past.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I support the Motion posed by my colleagues, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Manap.
Ms Poh Li San.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I would like to highlight some of our accomplishments at the 32nd SEA Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia.
Amongst the 558-strong contingent, our Team SG athletes bagged 51 gold, 43 silver and 64 bronze medals. Three athletes stood out.
One was Sprint queen Shanti Pereira, who was also commended by fellow Members. At 26 years old, Shanti became the first Singaporean woman to clinch gold medals for both the 100-metre and 200-metre sprint events and rewrote the national sprint records several times this year.
The second was 21-year-old swimmer, Jonathan Tan. He clinched gold at the games and broke the national and SEA Games record for 50-metre freestyle. With this winning time, Jonathan has also qualified for Paris Olympics 2024. His achievements are impressive even though he is still currently serving his National Service.
The third was 16-year-old debutant, Izaac Quek. Izaac swept three gold medals in all three table tennis men’s events by beating competitors who are more than twice his age.
At the 12th ASEAN Para Games, our athletes won 12 golds, 15 silvers and 17 bronzes. Special acknowledgement must be given to swimmer siblings, Colin and Sophie Soon, who both excelled. They clinched gold medals and rewrote the Games records for the S13 freestyle event.
With 51 gold medals, eight Games records, 17 national records and 40 personal best results, Singapore ranked sixth amongst 11 ASEAN countries, and not seventh as mentioned by Assoc Prof Jamus Lim earlier on. For a small nation to compete with more populous neighbours, it is not an easy feat. But we did well and what was achieved is credible, to say the least. So, congratulations to all our athletes!
Even with these accomplishments, I am of the opinion that there is always more room to achieve sporting successes as a nation. The fundamentals for this blueprint are in place, we are on the right track and there are bright sparks.
With the recent achievement as a reference, it is likely that in another decade or so, we might be able to see more TeamSG athletes on the Olympics podium. And in order to achieve sporting successes, focus must be placed on youth development.
To support the development of national athletes and national sports associations, the Government has already invested about $70 million annually on the High-Performance Sports system. These are significant investments to assist our high-performance athletes with a conducive training environment and to provide some financial support for them to train and compete at major competitions.
In October 2021, I spoke about nation-bonding through sports in Parliament and I recommended a four-pronged approach to strengthen our competitive sports system. The four points were: (a) focus on a few key sports; (b) search for talents from a young age; (c) nurture them through training and competitions; and (d) help them persevere through the challenging periods. These approaches will require commitment and continual efforts from both the Government and stakeholders.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, as the President of Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA), I would like to share my views and experiences about the table tennis youth development plans that we have.
STTA was founded in 1931 and has a long history of more than 92 years. The association has gone through its fair share of ups and downs over the years. Today, table tennis is one of the most popular sports in Singapore.
Many Singaporeans would remember how the Singapore women’s team won our first Olympics silver medal in the Beijing Olympics 2008. There were criticisms with regard to the fact that they were foreign talents. However, their contributions have undeniably elevated the standard of competitive table tennis in Singapore. To add, our head coaches for our current national team were both former Olympians: Coach Jing Junhong and Coach Gao Ning. They are naturalised Singaporeans and have remained here to help STTA nurture our national paddlers. Their valuable experiences and skills have contributed towards our table tennis successes.
Experienced stalwarts like Olympians Feng Tianwei, Yu Mengyu and Lin Ye have retired and STTA will have to ensure that there are new talented paddlers to take over. I am happy to share that as a result of STTA’s youth development programmes, we are not only able to nurture young talents to replace our stalwarts, the average age of our national team now is only 22 years old.
The recent Cambodian SEA Games men’s team gold medal was a historic win. It was the first victory in 50 years by an all local-born team. The men and women’s teams won four golds, two silvers and three bronzes – the best results since SEA Games 2017. This achievement is a strong testament to the early fruits of our local youth development efforts.
In STTA, we have put in place a very stringent selection process and start training the paddlers at a very young age. Children as young as five start training at one of our seven zone training centres that are located all across the island.
There are approximately 350 students in total. Students with good potential will start serious training from 10 years old and have an opportunity to be part of the Junior Development Squad, which has about 100 players.
Thereafter, at the secondary school level, about 40 players will be selected for the Youth Training Squad and School within Schools Programme. From this lot, between five and eight players will be selected for the Intermediate Squad. And finally, the top 12 players will be selected into the National Team.
The fact is that less than 1% of the Zone Training Centre students will eventually make it into the National Team.
These youth players have many opportunities to compete locally and internationally. Many talented youths were discovered during the annual Crocodile Cup, Singapore Junior and Hopes International Tournament, Southeast Asia Junior and Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships and the World Table Tennis Youth Contender series. In fact, most of our current National Team players started off as Crocodile Cup age-group champions.
The outstanding players, with some as young as 12 years old, will get opportunities to compete in junior table tennis competitions overseas. For instance, in April this year, 12-year-old Loy Ming Ying won her first under-13 gold medal in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Youth Contender held in Poland and her second gold medal in the under-13 WTT Youth Contender held in Berlin.
It is extremely demanding for the youth players to cope with the challenges of having to achieve academically and, at the same time, to be able to perform during training. To help them balance schoolwork with sports, the Singapore Sports School provides a flexible and athlete-centric academic approach around the athlete’s training and competition schedule. At the end of the day, athletes are still able to earn their diplomas and degrees while playing table tennis competitively. Ten out of 13 national team players are alumni of the Singapore Sports School.
And medals and academic degrees are important but, in my view, the most valuable lesson from this rigorous youth development pathway will be the lessons on independence, resilience, discipline and teamwork.
There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. In sports, it is a multi-million-dollar investment that takes years to groom a world-class champion.
In STTA, approximately two-thirds of our annual expenses are funded by Government grants. The remaining expenses are self-funded by our training programmes and from goodwill donations from sponsors and donors. STTA works closely with SportSG to map out multi-year sports plans and targets for international tournaments and major games.
To groom world-class players, they must consistently compete against the top players in the world or train with established table tennis leagues and academies. We have signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with several table tennis academies in Europe and Asia so that players from both sides can train together and learn from each other. The fact is that our paddlers are away from home most of the time as they travel to far-flung places across Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia to compete, train or acclimatise well before major games.
We clearly spare no effort in providing maximum training and competition opportunities for our top players. Over the past two years of intense competition and training stints, we have witnessed vast improvements in the technical skills and composure of our young national players, such as Izaac Quek, Koen Pang, Wong Xinru and Zhou Jingyi.
With each tournament, their world rankings improve so that they can qualify for major games and tournaments. As an example, Izaac Quek’s world ranking has risen rapidly from world No 239 in January 2023 to No 62 as of 4 July 2023 – two days ago – giving him a good chance to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
In the past, talented athletes would not have considered sports as a career. Family members and friends would openly discourage them as it was truly difficult to survive as a professional athlete.
Our times have since changed and there are signs that sports could now be considered as a viable career option. With proper management, successful athletes, such as Joseph Schooling and Loh Kean Yew, were able to generate sizeable incomes from both prize monies as well as endorsement fees. In addition, athletes who achieve podium finishes at the four major games will be rewarded with attractive prize monies from the SNOC Major Games Award Programme that is sponsored by the Tote Board Group.
In STTA, apart from the rewards, we will also prepare our national paddlers for eventual retirement. Funds will be set aside for full-time national paddlers who have completed at least three continuous years of service. The gratuity amount will correspond with the duration of their service, which can be drawn upon their retirement. In addition, we have also set aside trust funds for high achieving national paddlers who have represented Singapore in the Olympics to further their studies in the universities.
Most people may not be aware that beneath the glamour and fame of any recognised athlete, their schedule and expectations to achieve are extremely demanding. To add, there is always a possibility that the athletes may suffer a serious injury and can no longer compete. Professional sports can be very cruel because, after every victory, the athlete has to start from scratch again.
If our national athletes are expected to devote their youth to sports and to go all out to win at competitions in order to fly our flag high, we have to assure parents that professional sports is a viable career. Our sporting ecosystem must be able to support the professional athletes not only while they are at their peak but also after their retirement. It is only fair that our athletes and their families have such an assurance.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I have just explained how STTA searches for talents from a young age, nurture these talents through training and competitions and help them to persevere through the challenging periods.
Improvement is always necessary but identifying areas of improvement will be dependent on many factors, which include hidden challenges that may have absolutely nothing to do with sports, for example, issues like low birth rates and the relentless focus on academics. Such are difficult issues that we will have to manage when evaluating not just Singapore’s sporting ecosystem but our economy as well.
The Motion put forth by Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Faisal Manap is a concern that is expressed in a very elemental manner. Different sports have different challenges. The Motion fails to identify any focus or highlight the sports or games that they were referring to.
Regardless of any Government participation to support any sports or games, achievement in sports requires an athlete’s passion, his desire to overcome obstacles to nurture a strong fighting spirit and a strong desire to achieve will always take precedence over any evaluation. Similarly, you can provide perks and have a goal like having our national soccer team participate in the World Cup finals. When it is unrealistic, we must be able to admit that some goals are not quite possible to score yet.
Having said that, we must also bear in mind that sports are for everyone and not just about glory.
I chose to serve as the President of STTA pro bono because I want young players to be able to believe in their passion, achieve their sporting dreams and eventually become world-class paddlers who can win Olympic medals against all odds. STTA has a plan, is constantly improving, works with partners within the ecosystem and sets goals that are attainable to inspire our youths.
Mr Mark Chay.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I have some clarifications. The first clarification I have is for Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
Mr Chay, can you speak into the mic, please?
Sorry. The first clarification that I have is for Assoc Prof Jamus Lim on the nature of para sports and the economic considerations versus the performance that our para-athletes have in relation to national funding. I am not an economics professor, but there are also positive externalities when it comes to having an economy that is doing well, in terms of healthcare, in terms of care for patients as well. So, I think that also speaks to the talent pool when we talk about the number of athletes representing our para-athlete contingent.
Second, I work with the Invictus Foundation, which is a foundation that enables war veterans to actually compete and still represent their countries even though they have been permanently injured as para-athletes.
And I think that Singapore is a relatively safe country. When it comes to the whole landscape of para-athletes, we also need to consider that because of our economic stability, safety, national defence, the pool of para-athletes is actually not very large. So, I would just like to ask Assoc Prof Jamus Lim if he has actually considered these in his comments.
I have a second clarification.
Do you want to let Assoc Prof Jamus Lim —
Oh, sorry. Yes, please.
Do you have a second clarification for him?
Not for Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
Okay then. Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
I thank the Member for the clarification although I am a little befuddled as to what the specificity of the question is. I think I, at no point, suggested that our para-athletes were underperforming because we have a small population. If anything, I think the fact that our para-athletic team has done so well is something that we all feel extremely proud of. Later on, I believe some of my Workers' Party colleagues will elaborate more on helping to further improve the diversity and inclusiveness of our sports scene, which includes the para-athletes' performance. I hope this clarifies. Again, I am not entirely clear what the specificity of the Member's quarrel with what I had said earlier was.
I thank Assoc Prof Jamus Lim. I think I might have misunderstood, but my clarification is on the rankings of the other Southeast Asia nations, as opposed to ours. And how our para-athletes have performed in terms of total medal tally.
Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
That is how our para-athletes performed, and I can take the opportunity to clarify the earlier point that Ms Poh Li San said. Exactly the same as our normal athlete team in the sense that they were both ranked seventh in total medal count and Ms Poh Li San mentioned that the regular team secured six, which is correct, if you look at the fact that gold medals are counted differentially. But in the statement that I made earlier on, it was about total medal count. And in total medal count, we had the same performance, which was seventh in both cases of the regular SEA Games as well as the Paralympic Games.
I thank the Member for his answer. I am just wondering – so, your statements mean that —
Mr Mark Chay, can you address your clarifications to the Chair?
Sorry. This is actually the first time in two-and-a-half years that I am doing this.
It is okay. Can you address your clarification to the Chair? Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, you can take your seat first.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I am just wondering if Assoc Prof Jamus Lim is also saying that – I just want to make a point that when it comes to sports—
You want to seek a clarification?
Yes, of course. When it comes to sports, you cannot just look at the socio-economic background of a country specifically. You have to look at it as a whole. I think that is the question that I had for Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, whether he considered it as a whole, not just looking at our economic status in the region.
Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.
I thank the Member for his clarification. And indeed, I emphasised in the speech that there were many elements, including the fact that we have a small population that does affect the relative performance of our national teams, whether in terms of the SEA Games or the Para Games. But if anything, socio-economic status tends to drive a great deal of the performance outcomes. And in that regard specifically, it is clear to me, at least based on the data, that we massively underperformed.
Mr Mark Chay, you have another clarification?
Yes, Mdm Deputy Speaker. Actually, I do have another clarification for the Leader of the House pertaining to his comments about —
Do you mean the Leader of the Opposition?
Yes, the Leader of the Opposition. Regarding our silat athletes and swimmers, I just want to clarify that for the silat athlete, whether he is aware that the drink-driving incident actually happened on 27 November 2022 and the silat competition at the SEA Games actually happened on 18 May 2023. So, that falls outside the Code of Conduct and the Athletes' Agreement.
The second is on the swimmers. I think we have clarified this in the House before that the swimmers admitted to the consumption of marijuana. There was no presence of marijuana. There was no criminal act of proceedings or infringements here. So, I just wanted to clarify that and ask if he is aware of that as well.
Also, SNOC called the disciplinary committee (DC) for the swimmers. They were sanctioned. They paid a fine and this was all done before the selection for the SEA Games.
Leader of the Opposition.
I would like to thank the Nominated Member for his queries. While I note the points he is making, they do not detract from the larger point vis-à-vis those two issues which I raised, which was that SNOC has a track record of looking and displaying a forgiving attitude towards athletes who may have committed transgressions. I think that is the key point, which I hope SNOC and the Ministry also can take into account for other athletes who may have fallen short.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, can I respond?
Yes, please proceed.
I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his response on the Soh Rui Yong case. Yes, indeed, SNOC has – and I have to declare that I am not a member of SNOC. I am just making clarifications.
You are just clarifying?
Yes. I am not a member of SNOC. I just followed the proceedings quite independently. But I was on the Selection Committee in 2021 when we decided not to send Soh Rui Yong for various reasons. But I do want to say that these athletes have had their disciplinary committees, they have already served their penalties. They paid their fines. They were sorry and we have all moved on. So, SNOC does have that track record of that.
I would like to also state that for the case of Soh Rui Yong, an Appeals Committee was convened, a special committee or hearing was actually held for Soh Rui Yong. He seemed very sorry for what he had done. There was also a commitment from him to — I am not going to go into the details of the commitment. Well, with respect to the commitment, he said that he would not make disparaging comments and he would abide by the Code of Conduct, that he was sorry.
He went to the SEA Games – well and good, right? So, he did participate in the SEA Games. When he came back, he did a podcast and he made disparaging comments not only about SNOC, but about his teammate as well. So, that was the result of his non-selection in the Asian Games in 2023.
I would also like to say that this is not uncommon in the world. I think in 2016, Kento Momota, for badminton, he was ranked No 1. He was gambling and he broke the Code of Conduct, and he was also not allowed to attend the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, even though he was ranked No 1.
But I think to say that Soh Rui Yong was not allowed to compete, he can still compete, not at the major games, but at Singapore Athletics sanctioned meets. I believe that Singapore Athletics believes that he still abides by the Code of Conduct and they still select him and nominate him for these games. So, he can still compete, he can still break national records, but not at the major games. Where leniency was given, he took advantage of the situation. He broke his, I guess, commitment. And that is why he was not selected for the Asian Games.
Leader of the Opposition.
I would like to thank the Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) for his interventions. I think I have mentioned a few times in my speech and I was careful to do it to restate that it is important for athletes to abide by standards of discipline. Soh Rui Yong is my resident. So, I am appealing also as his Member of Parliament. And if SNOC can take another look at him, I am not out of order, I believe, to raise this matter. And – given that the matter actually goes far beyond, in the eyes of many, just to be an issue of transgressions – I hope more senior members of our sporting fraternity can come in and try to lower temperatures, so that athletes like Soh Rui Yong can participate and fly the flag proudly.
Mr Darryl David.
Sorry, Madam, I just have one more clarification for Mr Leon Perera.
Alright, make it brief.
I thank Mr Leon Perera for his comments in his speech. I have just one clarification on the support for athletes who are not in popular sports. He cited bowling as well as billiards, with Peter Gilchrist, Aloysius Yapp, Shayna Ng as well as Cherie Tan. They are all spexScholarship holders. SportSG actually does give them funding and support, both in sports science as well as grants. So, I just wanted to understand whether he is aware that spexScholarship does exist for athletes in this situation.
I thank the Nominated Member, Mr Mark Chay, for his clarification. I did, in my speech, allude to my awareness of the existence of sports scholarships and I mentioned a few, nor in my speech did I claim that there is no Government support for these less well-known sports. In fact, I highlighted, in the case of cue sports, the Government funding that is given to them.
My point for the part of my speech about less well-known sports is that we do have top performers in some of these sports. It is not very widely known or well-known, and there is room to do more, in terms of trying to understand why they have succeeded, unpacking the reasons, replicating the factors and ecosystem and building on that.
And I would like to ask the hon Member Mr Chay if he feels that there is no room for improvement in terms of the support – whether as a Government, as a society, the NSAs or SportSG – given to less well-known sports. Are we in a state of perfection? Does he feel that there is absolutely no room for improvement at all? If so, I welcome his views.
Mr Perera, in future, please direct it to the Chair. Mr Chay.
My apologies, Mdm Deputy Speaker.
I would like to thank the hon Member for his comments. Yes, I do think that there is room for improvement and there is definitely no perfect system. I am paraphrasing from yesterday. There are a lot of wonderful systems out there, but we have got to do the right system for what works in Singapore, and we have success in the systems that we have right now. Obviously, we need to continually improve on them.
Yes, Mdm Deputy Speaker, we definitely need to continue to improve on them and support our athletes. But based on the systems that we have today, they are working. I am not saying that they are perfect. There is always room for improvement and I think that is part of why we are debating this Motion today.
Yes, Mr Perera?
Mdm Deputy Speaker, if I could just be permitted one more clarification for the hon Member Mr Mark Chay.
Please proceed.
I wonder if the hon Member was paying attention to Assoc Prof Jamus Lim when he presented the data. I mean, I acknowledge —
Please speak into the microphone, I cannot hear you.
Sorry, again. I acknowledge that, of course, no system is perfect. I think we all acknowledge that. My colleague Assoc Prof Jamus Lim presented data on the performance of different countries in sporting excellence, government spending relative to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. And I think Singapore is below the trendline in that. Would the hon Member recognise that or does he feel that the data is wrong or he feels that it is not appropriate to make that comparison, to analyse the data in that way?
Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I recognise the hon Member's comments and I recognise that there was a fancy chart with GDP, but we cannot look at athlete performance juxtaposed to GDP alone.
There are many different factors and, if you ask me, high performance takes time. We celebrate the accomplishments of our aquatic fraternity; we came back with 23 gold medals at the Southeast Asian Games. But there was a time when our men's team did not have a gold medal after Ang Peng Siong, 1993, where he swam in the 50-metre freestyle. I was a Primary 5 kid, a basket kid, taking the track suits out. But that was inspiring.
The next time the Singapore men's team won a gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games was 2001. High performance takes time.
Singapore is an economic miracle. We have achieved so much in the past 50, 60 years. The other systems need time to catch up and I think we should view this as well in the analysis.
Assoc Prof Jamus Lim
Just a very quick clarification for the Member. Does he feel that we should exercise exactly the same modicum of patience with all the other areas that Singapore rightly excels in on the international stage? Whether we are happy that we have taken 20 years and, if anything, we have fallen much further away in terms of the relative performance of our football team, even as we have gotten relatively richer?
I thank the hon Member for his comments. Definitely for sports, I say we need to take a measured approach where we are very young in this whole idea of sports administration and high performance. We started building our facilities back in 1960s and 1970s only. We were playing football on the Padang and Farrer Park. Although right now we have a lot of wonderful facilities, the programming needs to kick in.
And if you look at high performance, you are looking at 2029 Southeast Asian Games or the Olympics in 2028. You are looking at the Secondary 1, Secondary 2 kids today and they take time to mature.
So, we may have the facilities here, but you still need to continue to grow and groom these kids to be able to give them appropriate level competitions in order to produce results in 10 years' time.
That is just my view – you cannot expect the results to come immediately, especially when you talk about high performance, dynamic sports like football. I do not claim to be an expert but when you are dealing with 11 men on one team and 11 men on the other team, a lot of things can happen.
I used to be the CEO of Singapore Hockey Federation. I can tell you that team sport is extremely complex. It is not like individual sports, where it is one person on the track, seven in a single lane. You have to talk about having everyone performing in sync, in concert, together. So, that is my view.
Mr Darryl David.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, sports and sporting activities can take place at multiple levels. You could have the auntie doing tai-chi daily in the park to the 30-something weekend warrior battling away with his football buddies to the elite athletes who undergo the gruelling training in the pursuit of their Olympian goal.
Sporting success would thus be different things to different people. We should thus not define sporting success only by medals won or quantitative targets attained. Just as sports and sporting activities can play multiple roles in our community, such as fostering national pride and connecting or bonding people from all walks of life, we should also measure sporting success by looking at whether or not these broader goals have been met or attained via sports.
In short, let us not be too narrow in defining sporting success.
As an educator of more than 20 years, I have always believed in the value of a holistic education, and sports and sporting activity are a key part of a holistic education. It helps shape a person's beliefs and attitude towards overcoming challenges in life.
Athletes undergo gruelling challenges in their sporting pursuits. Through these, he picks up the skills that are valuable to the corporate world. This is truly education outside the classroom. Some skills our athletes might pick up include: resilience, the ability to bounce back from failure; fortitude, the strength to keep going when the going gets tough; humility, the ability to embrace critical feedback in their continuous journey of self-improvement; and also cooperation and empathy, especially for those involved in team sports.
I believe that many corporate partners recognise this and do step forward to support our athletes in their professional life beyond sports, and this is critical as the shelf life of a professional athlete is relatively short compared to many other professions.
I understand that it has been 10 years since the Government set up the spexBusiness Network. Today, the spexBusiness Network, within the Singapore Sport Institute’s (SSI) Sport Excellence, or spex, framework, consists of 60 corporate partners across 15 industries.
These corporate partners support Team Singapore athletes during their active sports career, offering full-time or part-time or internship positions. These companies are committed to athlete-friendly work practices that support active athletes in their sporting ambitions, while helping them develop professionally and gain valuable experience at the workplace.
I am heartened that the spexBusiness Network also offers support for professional development and opportunities to prepare retiring athletes for a smooth transition into a post-competition career and it would be good if the Government could provide an update in terms of how many athletes have benefited from this programme.
I would like to encourage more from the corporate sector to recognise the value that our athletes can bring and join the spexBusiness Network as a partner, and also encourage the Government, as one of the biggest employers in Singapore, to see how it can be supportive of providing professional pathways for athletes during and after their sporting careers.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, the pressure that our athletes face can be overwhelming. I would like to talk a little now on the provision of mental health support. I am heartened that Athlete Life Management is a key area of focus for SSI and the National Youth Sports Institute (NYSI). It is about integrating sports performance with key aspects of an athlete’s life and total well-being, including mental well-being.
And like in education, supporting our athletes’ total well-being is an effort requiring partnership across multiple stakeholders – coaches, psychologists, National Sports Associations (NSAs) and even parents. My daughter is an active junior competitive swimmer. She is 11-plus, but, as a parent, I have already seen the kind of stresses and pressure that competitive athletes at that level go through – training six times a week, two hours per session, more than 50-60 laps each time in the pool at six in the morning, juggling their homework and so on. So, I am truly heartened and am a big advocate of making sure that we have that mental and emotional wellness support for our athletes as well, both young and the not-so-young.
Ahead of major competitions, I understand SSI and NYSI assign Sport Psychologists and Athlete Life personnel to provide more dedicated psychological and mental well-being support for our national athletes. This support includes one-on-one consultations and imparting skills to athletes to manage their mental and emotional conditions.
Support, Mdm Deputy Speaker, needs to go beyond major competitions. We should equip coaches and relevant personnel like sports administrators with the skills needed to proactively identify and support athletes who may be experiencing issues with their mental well-being. They should also be able to refer athletes to appropriate sources of help.
We should also work with the respective NSAs to build the mental resilience of our athletes. As the body responsible for grooming Team Singapore athletes for their sport, the NSAs play an important role to help our athletes develop coping mechanisms and ways to practise self-care.
Madam, it is also important to realise that elite athletes need help and support in transitioning into their post-competitive life and beyond. As such, I hope that mental and emotional wellness support and help can be made available even after athletes have retired from the competitive arena.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, sport has always played a significant part in my life. Although not at the illustrious levels of our Olympian colleague Mr Mark Chay or even at the levels of former national sportsman Deputy Speaker Christopher de Souza, I have always played a variety of sports at a fairly competitive level. And my daughter, as I mentioned earlier, is continuing that family tradition as a competitive junior swimmer.
I also began my professional career in sports broadcasting 30 years ago as a TV presenter for the 1993 SEA Games. It has been 30 years! And that was the SEA Games held in Singapore after almost 20 years, if Members recall.
Over the many years, I have had the privilege to interact and engage with national and professional athletes, sports administrators, Government officials, corporate sponsors, international sport broadcasters – almost every stakeholder in the sports industry and the sports ecosystem. So, it is with this personal passion and professional background in mind that I feel that the present Motion, as it stands, could be a little limiting in terms of its scope. I have also noted some comments from my other Parliamentary colleagues along these lines.
For instance, hon Members Ms Poh Li San and Dr Wan Rizal spoke about the broader objectives of high-performance sports, which are to help our athletes achieve their best potential. And Ms Poh also alluded to the proactive approach towards a sporting ecosystem and how regular reviews are institutionalised as part and parcel of the NSAs’ partnership with SportSG.
In this light, Mdm Deputy Speaker, with your permission, may I humbly, therefore, propose an amendment to the Motion?
Can I have a copy of your amendment?
Yes, Madam. [A copy of the amendment was handed to Mdm Deputy Speaker.]
The amendment is in order. Are copies available for Members?
Yes, Madam. Could I have the assistance of the Clerks to distribute the copies, if Madam gives the go-ahead?
Please proceed. [Copies of the amendment were distributed to hon Members.] Please move your amendment.
Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, Madam, the following amendments:
(a) In line 1, after the words "athletes and para-athletes", to insert "including";
(b) In line 3, to delete "undertake a" and insert "continue its"; and
(c) In line 4, to delete "clear, achievable goals for sporting success" and insert "our goals in sports".
Let me please explain the proposed amendments, Madam, with your leave.
Yes.
The first point on inserting "including" before "at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games" recognises that any celebration of accomplishments of our athletes and para-athletes goes beyond these games, and I think Members in this House would agree with me.
So, we ought to recognise their accomplishments at other major competitions, not just the Asian Games, ASEAN Para Games, Olympics and Paralympics, but also single-sport competitions at the regional and world levels, which are, really, what we have been talking about. Many Members here have been talking about many other sports, beyond the traditional sports and many competitions even, beyond the Olympics, Paralympics, Asian Games, SEA Games and so on.
The next point, Madam, is in relation to deleting "undertake a" and inserting "continue its". This recognises the continuing nature of reviews and goal-setting for our high-performance sports and our sports system, regardless of any Motion raised. Regular reviews of policies and goals are a key feature of our system. So, I would like to propose that we continue all these reviews and all these assessments for the overall benefit of our sporting ecosystem.
The final point is in relation to deleting "clear, achievable goals for sporting success" and inserting "our goals in sports". The original Motion mentioned just one of several objectives, for example, goals for sporting success, where the last limb can be construed as being about medals or qualifications for international tournaments. I think success should be measured beyond just that one particular quantitative marker. Also, our broader objectives of sports are to help athletes reach their maximum potential and also to broaden participation in sports, rally our communities, foster national pride and cohesion, or even just about being the best version of yourself that you can be. As I tell my daughter, it is not about winning the medals, it is about improving your personal best every time you go into the pool. All of us, we have got to have that personal best – amateur sportsmen, professional sportsmen – and I believe that we should, therefore, proceed along these lines.
Madam, I propose that the debate of this amendment take place concurrently with the debate on the main topic. I look forward to support for this amendment from my colleagues, also from the Workers' Party, too. Mdm Deputy Speaker, I beg to move.
There are three amendments proposed by Mr Darryl David to the Motion.
"In line 1, after the words 'athletes and para-athletes', to insert 'including';
In line 3, to delete 'undertake a' and insert 'continue its'; and
The third amendment, in line 4, to delete 'clear, achievable goals for sporting success' and insert 'our goals in sports'."
It may be convenient that the debate on the original and on any other amendments moved by Members be proceeded with simultaneously as a debate on a single question. Do I have the hon Members' agreement to this?
Question put, and agreed to.
Mr Leong Mun Wai.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion raised by the Member for Sengkang GRC Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Member for Aljunied GRC Mr Faisal Manap.
On behalf of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), I would, first, like to offer my congratulations to TeamSG's athletes and para-athletes for their achievements at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia.
TeamSG's 51 gold medals at the SEA Games and 12 gold medals at the ASEAN Para Games are the third and fourth highest away from home soil in our history respectively. Our athletes and para-athletes have done themselves, their families and their country proud.
We call on the Government to continue to review Singapore's sporting ecosystem and identify opportunity areas where we can provide more support to help our nation and our athletes achieve greater success in the coming years.
I have two areas of review to suggest.
One area of review in our sporting ecosystem is in the selection of athletes to represent Singapore at international sporting competitions, such as the SEA Games and Asian Games.
This has been the source of some controversy recently, with marathoner Soh Rui Yong being omitted from the national team for the forthcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou because of his controversial comments on social media.
While this has been extensively covered by the Leader of the Opposition and clarified further by Mr Mark Chay, however, please allow me to speak up one more time for Soh Rui Yong.
At the recent SEA Games, Soh Rui Yong has once again shown that he is a talented and record-setting runner. He has demonstrated the potential to continue bringing glory to Singapore at the Asian Games.
However, he cannot do so because he has supposedly not met the SNOC's selection criteria, which encompass athletes' attitudes, behaviours, general conduct and disciplinary history.
We think this is a very serious matter to disqualify an athlete for non-performance reasons. We call for greater objectivity and transparency in the selection criteria for athletes to represent Singapore at major sporting events. More clarity is needed around the process by which an athlete is disqualified from representing Singapore.
PSP also believes that all sports associations should be led by people with professional expertise and interest in the sport. This will ensure that Singapore's sporting ecosystem is driven by athletes who know how to succeed in the sport and are committed to have the sport succeed in Singapore.
Such leaders will be more likely to understand the needs of our professional athletes and be able to work with them to advance Singapore's international standing in these sports.
Another area where we can provide greater support to athletes as a nation is greater flexibility around National Service (NS) obligations, which I have spoken on last August. This would make a great difference to the sporting careers of our male athletes.
Last year, our Olympic gold medallist Joseph Schooling called for a national dialogue on managing expectations of athletes undergoing National Service. He related to the media the challenges of serving NS and trying to excel in the pool at the same time and the expectations from the public to perform.
In 2018 and 2022, the Minister for Defence explained Singapore's deferment policies in this House, which are grounded on the principles of national security, universality and equity. These principles mean that every Singaporean must serve NS at the time he is required to do under the Enlistment Act.
However, in recent years, there are many Singaporeans who are concerned that many male foreigners are given citizenship without having to serve NS while our male sports talents miss out on the opportunity to develop their sporting careers because they must serve NS.
In the area of sports, PSP supports allowing a small number of our most talented male athletes to receive long deferments for NS so that they can reach their full athletic potential and maximise the opportunity to bring glory to our nation.
The policies around such deferments should be determined through a national dialogue around NS deferments. We believe it is timely to have such a dialogue to discuss how the criteria for such deferments can support our young male athletes in achieving sporting success while still being explicit, transparent and fair and satisfy the principles of national security, universality and equity.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, PSP is confident that if you do more to build a stronger sporting ecosystem in Singapore, our nation will be able to scale greater heights of sporting success in the years to come. For country, for people.
Mr Gerald Giam.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, I extend my heartiest congratulations to TeamSG athletes and para-athletes who have qualified for, participated in and, for some, won medals at the recent SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia.
These include Aljunied GRC residents, Kimberly Ong, Colin Soon, Sophie Soon and Soh Rui Yong. You have done your family, the sports fraternity and your country proud by flying the Singapore flag high on the world stage.
I also wish all our Asian Games athletes and para-athletes the best of success in their preparations and competitions at the upcoming Asian Games and Asian Para Games in October.
My speech today will focus on the development of high-performance athletes in Singapore. I will delve into some of the challenges faced in the local sports ecosystem and will propose several ideas that I believe will enable Singapore to achieve greater success in the international sporting arena.
Before I continue, I wish to declare my interest in this matter as a parent with a child who trains in a high-performance sports programme supported by SportSG.
Most of us would be familiar with the 10,000-hour rule. This is a concept proposed by Dr Anders Ericsson and popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book, Outliers: The Story of Success. The rule suggests that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve mastery in a particular field or skill.
To clock 10,000 hours, an athlete would need to put in three hours a day of practice six days a week, continuously, for over 10 years.
Going by this rule, if an athlete aims to be world-class by the age of 18, they would need to start serious training when they are just eight years old. This does not even take into account the quality of their training and their innate talent, which are important factors for their future success.
In fact, many world-class athletes today started training in the high-performance environment from as young an age as five. Many were handpicked while they were still learning to walk, often by their own parents. In his autobiography, "Black and White", Richard Williams describes how he came up with the plan to train his two daughters to become tennis champions before they were even born. We all know how successful Venus and Serena Williams became. There are also many other instances of fraught relationships between parents and their child athletes, even to the point of abuse. And I am not suggesting that Richard Williams' approach is right for every athlete. However, this is the nature of an international competition young athletes are up against.
For most sports, in order to become a world-class athlete, the period of very high intensity training often starts from the age of 12 or even younger. This coincides with the time Singaporean students are the busiest, preparing for their PSLE, "O" and "A" levels. Training for just a few hours a week with the school's co-curricular activity (CCA) sports team is not high-performance training and this pace of training will generally limit the students' success in their sport to inter-school sports competitions.
High-performance athletes are generally expected to put in between 12 hours and 30 hours of high-intensity training each week, with the number of hours increasing with age. One local national sports association (NSA) provides a training volume guideline of 28 hours a week and 27 tournaments a year for 16-year-old male athletes in their sport.
Athletes need to travel overseas, usually during the school term, to take part in tournaments which are necessary for gaining competition experience and earning ranking points. It is extremely challenging for a secondary school student in a mainstream local school to balance this heavy load of training, travel and competition with their studies without burning themselves out physically, mentally and emotionally.
An exception is found in the Singapore Sports School where academic schedules are customised to accommodate the student athletes' training and competition commitments. The hon Member Poh Li San shared about this earlier, too.
The Sports School has produced some very successful graduates, including badminton player Loh Kean Yew and table tennis player Clarence Chew, who have both won gold for our nation at international competitions. This leads me to my next point: the Singaporean outlook towards the nexus of sports and studies.
In Singapore, the well-established route for young individuals to achieve a comfortable income and provide for their family involved completing their education, graduating from either a polytechnic or university and securing a professional position, preferably in a bank, tech company or law firm.
Becoming a professional athlete, on the other hand, is probably one of the most difficult paths a Singaporean can choose. It is not a ticket out of poverty in Singapore as it is in some countries. Even if we look at some of the highest paying sports like golf and tennis, only athletes ranked in the top 150 or so in the world earn enough prize money to support themselves. Those outside these rankings may struggle to even cover their expenses, which include travel, accommodation, coaching and physiotherapy fees. In lower-paying sports, athletes must depend on salaries paid by their clubs or NSAs to cover their expenses. It is a tough life.
Despite the desire for sports champions in Singapore, pragmatism often leads parents to view pursuing a professional sports career as impractical for their children. Consequently, many talented student athletes choose to enter top mainstream secondary schools through the Direct School Admission programme rather than attending the specialised Singapore Sports School. This is despite the fact that the latter often offers a more favourable environment for balancing both sports and studies.
However, student athletes enrol in mainstream schools encounter constraints when compared to their peers in the Sports School. The fixed timetables in mainstream schools do not cater specifically to athletes, making it difficult for them to undergo long hours of training and overseas competition. While some mainstream schools offer limited flexibility on an individual basis, such as permitting athletes to skip a week of school for international competitions, the time away from lessons eventually takes a toll on their studies. With this reality in play, we should not be surprised that we continue to have a narrow pipeline of world-class athletes.
The "academics-first" approach is one that most Singaporeans have chosen over the years and will continue to choose in the years to come. Given that many high-performance athletes are of school-going age, if nothing is done to shift the youth sports development paradigm, we will continue to see many budding sports stars eventually fizzle out after they complete secondary school.
How do we shift this paradigm? I would like to offer some suggestions for MCCY, SportSG, NSAs, coaches, schools, parents and student athletes to consider.
First, given how important academics are to Singaporeans, it is not fruitful to try to persuade them to choose sports over studies. We should, therefore, explore pathways that allow student athletes to pursue both their studies and sports at the highest level. This is possible through what is known as the college pathway.
Most universities in the United States are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA. There are three divisions in these sports.
The top tier, known as Division I, runs inter-collegiate championships in 13 male and 13 female sports, including swimming, soccer, track and field, tennis, golf, water polo, field hockey, basketball, volleyball and diving. Many of these are popular sports in Singapore which our athletes compete in during major games, like the SEA Games, Asian Games and the Olympics.
College sports is huge in the US and has a television audience comparable to the top professional team sports. This popularity attracts commercial sponsors and television licensing rights and is a huge revenue earner for some universities to the tune of some US$30 million a year.
The quality of college sports in the US is so high that many of the best junior athletes from all over the world, including Europe, Australia and China, vie for the opportunity to study in these universities on full athletics scholarships while competing in their sport. Many of these universities have students that win more international championships than many small nations. The University of Southern California, for example, had 65 past, present or incoming student athletes competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, compared to 23 from Singapore. USC athletes collectively won 11 gold medals in those games.
Many of the top performing universities in inter-collegiate sports are also top-ranked academic institutions. They include Stanford UC Berkeley, Duke University of Michigan, UCLA and USC. Harvard, Princeton, UPenn and other Ivy League universities are also NCAA Division I members. In fact, the Ivy league is a Collegiate Athletic Conference comprising eight schools in northeastern US, although it is more commonly used to refer to academically elite American universities.
Division I athletes are sometimes offered "full-ride" athletics scholarships. These can cover tuition fees, housing, meals, transport, apparel, equipment coaching, sports science expertise and even academic tutoring for the athletes. By pursuing the college pathway, more Singaporean student athletes can have the opportunity to benefit from the best of both worlds, a top-quality university education and elite level competition in their sport.
College sports can be a springboard to the professional leagues after graduation.
Several Singaporeans who competed for US colleges returned to represent Singapore in major games. These include swimmer Joseph Schooling who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin; golfer Hailey Loh, who is studying in California Baptist University and our Parliamentary colleague, the hon Member Mark Chay, who graduated from Brigham Young University.
Even those who do not ultimately make it into an American university, the disciplined focus in both academics and sports through the secondary school years will better prepare student athletes to enter our local polytechnics and universities.
Athletes are also much sought after by many companies after they graduate because many employers recognise that athletes' discipline, drive and good time management skills are among the many valuable skills that they bring to the workplace.
Despite the attractiveness of the college pathway, there appears to be a lack of awareness about it among many student athletes and their parents about the steps they need to take to pursue it.
SportSG, NSAs, sports academies, schools and coaches should conduct more sharing sessions and provide more guidance for athletes and their parents on the college pathway. This will allow parents and athletes to make considered plans in developing their proficiency in their sport. The college pathway could provide a stronger pipeline of athletes in several sports that Singapore has potential to excel in, at major games.
My second suggestion is that the Singapore Sports School should expand its enrolment of students beyond the nine "academy sports" and provide a study-and-train environment for more student athletes who can demonstrate their interest and potential to compete at an international level in their sport.
To make this successful, the Sports School and SportSG need to better market the benefits of their sports and academic programmes to prospective students. The Sports School can arrange more sharing sessions at various primary schools nationwide, in addition to the existing Sports School open house. It could also invite the high-performing athletes in primary schools for holiday camps at the Sports School during the school holidays. These will enable the young athletes and parents to better understand and familiarise themselves with the Sports School. The Sports School will then be able to better attract a critical mass of students in each sport that will, in turn, make the school more attractive to prospective students.
Third, despite interest in sports, the local media should play a bigger role in featuring local athletes in international competitions.
When Singaporeans turn on their television sets to watch sports, they seldom see their compatriots competing. In fact, it is so rare to see Singaporeans in world-class sports competitions that when it does happen, like when Loh Kean Yew won the badminton world championships in 2021, many of us specifically tuned in to watch them. Unfortunately, in the case of Loh Kean Yew's amazing win, it was so unexpected that even our public broadcaster did not make preparations to broadcast the final match live to Singaporeans.
Matches featuring local athletes in the advanced stages of international competitions should be telecast live on free-to-air television or live-streamed online. During major games, all the matches and races where Team Singapore athletes are competing in should be uploaded to an online video platform like MeWatch or YouTube. There should not just be a daily highlights programme which features a few athletes in action. The media features could include interviews with high-performance athletes sharing their insights about their day-to-day schedules and training. All these will spark interest in the various sports among athletes, fans and commercial sponsors.
My fourth and final suggestion is to parents of athletes and the athletes themselves.
Parents have an out-sized influence on their children's sporting ambitions and progress, from a very young age through their growing years. If you are a parent of a talented and athletic youngster, do take the time to listen to and understand your child's motivations and dreams, assess whether they truly love their sport and do not push them to excel in a sport just to "DSA" into a good school or, worse, live your own dreams vicariously through them. I say this as a reminder to myself, too.
Most athletes will only have the intrinsic motivation to push themselves to reach the pinnacle of their arena if they genuinely enjoy participating in the sport. Your child must know that you love them, regardless of their results on the field.
If your child has aspirations to become a world-class athlete, encourage them to pursue their dreams, take the time to find out the available pathways and support them within your means. The path will be less well-trodden than the ones most of their peers are taking and there is no guarantee of success. It is, therefore, important to focus on enjoying the journey, not just the destination.
In conclusion, Madam, sport has the potential to rally our nation together behind a common cause. When Singaporeans cheer in support of our sportsmen and women, listen to Majulah Singapura playing at the podium or see Singaporean athletes giving their all on the field, in the pool or on the court, we all feel an immense rush of pride in our nation. Yet, for a nation as wealthy and as diverse as Singapore, our record of performance in sports on the world stage leaves much to be desired.
I have outlined four suggestions aimed at improving Singapore's sporting ecosystem to build a stronger and more sustainable pipeline of high-performance athletes in Singapore. This will help us take steps towards realising our goals for sporting success over the coming decades and for many decades to come. I strongly support the Motion standing in the names of my hon friends Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap.
Mr Melvin Yong.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to join in this debate. My speech will cover the following four points: first, I support the Motion where we acknowledge the hard work by our athletes and our para-athletes; second, I will highlight why broad-based accessible programming to encourage more people to participate in sports is key in building up our talent pool for high-performance sports; third, I will speak on the need to ensure inclusivity through sports; and fourth, as a lifelong football fan, I hope to offer some suggestions for Singapore's football to, once again, reach the heights of the 1980s and 1990s.
Madam, I would like to begin by congratulating our TeamSG athletes and para-athletes for their commendable results at this year’s Southeast Asian Games and the ASEAN Para Games. TeamSG won a total of 158 medals at the SEA Games while our para-athletes brought home a total of 44 medals. This was our second-best away performance of all time, behind the 2017 ASEAN Para Games.
While news about our best-performing athletes and para-athletes, especially those who have consecutively broken records, might dominate news headlines and deservedly generate the most hype, we must also not forget the rest of our athletes who did not win medals. Every athlete trains hard and they sacrifice their time with family and friends with every intention of doing their best for themselves and for the country they represent. They were not in the competitions just to make up the numbers.
The amended Motion, therefore, acknowledges the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of our TeamSG athletes, both past and present.
Madam, to achieve success at the elite sports level, a systematic and comprehensive approach to identify, nurture and develop TeamSG athletes is important. Broad-based accessible programming that encourages sports participation will be a key part of this approach, as we need a broad participation base from which we can identify and develop sporting talent.
I personally know how challenging it is to organise such sporting programmes and keep the participation strong.
Years ago, in 2011, I started the Delta League programme. It is now a bi-annual youth engagement programme that aims to engage youths through football and keep them meaningfully occupied during the long June and December school holidays. Jointly organised by the Police and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), there are also talks and activities besides the football clinics and matches that inculcate in our youths a sense of social responsibility, teamwork and discipline.
The Delta League programme complements several other programmes in our community, including the SportCares initiatives by SportSG. Every year, SportSG also partners different sports organisations to bring about Pesta Sukan. This is the largest multi-sports competition in Singapore designed for the community. It provides an opportunity, too, for amateur sportsmen and women to get together to raise their own standards through competition.
This year’s Pesta Sukan 2023 will commence from this weekend, 8 July 2023, to National Day at the Singapore Sports Hub.
Madam, I am heartened to highlight that Pesta Sukan features 30 different sports, from able-bodied sports like archery and floorball to para sports like para-athletics, para bowling, as well as sports which are popular among young and old alike, such as pétanque and pickleball.
The categories of the different sports range from Open, Masters, Youth, Community and Corporate. There are also other sporting activities, such as the Stadium Run and SG Urban Walk Challenge. Basically, my point is that there is a sporting activity for everyone.
It is important to have events like these to encourage everyone to come together to play sports, regardless of age, ability and background. With more people participating in sports, we can not only have a wider pool to identify sporting talents who can go on to do us proud on the world podium but also cultivate a nation of people who can better appreciate sports, which goes a long way to growing our sporting nation.
I, therefore, encourage Members of the House to rally your own constituents to participate in the Pesta Sukan activities. We can all join in as participants, as spectators or simply to cheer on our friends and family.
Lastly, let me move on to a sport that has a special place in my heart and, I believe, in the hearts of many Singaporeans – football.
Members will agree with me that it is evident that our football scene requires a lot of work. I note that the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has commissioned a panel to conduct a review of the team’s performances and will share their findings and recommendations soon. I would, nonetheless, like to give some suggestions on how we can improve the state of our football.
I start with our lack of dedicated infrastructure and facilities. Unlike some of our neighbouring countries, we have limited training grounds and stadiums equipped with quality football facilities.
Today, as some Members have already highlighted, we cannot even play football at our void decks and many of our neighbourhood school football fields and parks have restricted use. This scarcity restricts the number of local talents that can be groomed and inhibits the organising of more football events and competitions, which then limits the exposure that our players receive. Hence, it is vital for us to invest in the development of infrastructure to provide our athletes with the necessary ecosystem of support and opportunities.
Next, we must improve the way we groom our pipeline of football talents. We need to establish a robust talent scouting and recruitment system to identify early promising players. Only by identifying them early when they are young and by continuously nurturing them can Singapore build a strong pool of players who can contribute to the national team and compete internationally.
One of the best ways I found in scouting our talents is to search from the grassroots, and the Delta League is one good example. The tournament sees about 2,000 young players every year. And over the years, some of them have been scouted to play at club level and, eventually, some have gone on to train with the national teams. FAS can and should widen its talent scouting and recruitment systems to encompass the many hidden gems in our community. And I welcome the FAS scouts to attend our Delta League matches.
Third, we must also establish strong partnerships with professional clubs and leagues worldwide to help groom our local talents. We need to provide structured avenues for players to join professional academies, participate in overseas training programmes and experience competitive leagues at a higher level.
Exposing our local players to different playing styles and allowing them to benchmark their abilities against international competitors can help them better develop their own skills and broaden their knowledge of the game.
Madam, regrettably, our local football today is not where we want it to be nor where we can be. By investing in infrastructure, nurturing young talents, promoting collaborations and benchmarking ourselves against successful football nations and, with the support from the Government, relevant stakeholders and the unwavering passion from the football fraternity and fans, we can, no doubt, elevate the standard of football in Singapore once again.
Madam, in conclusion, it is clear from the speeches today that beyond winning medals, sports and our sportsmen and sportswomen play a key role in rallying our communities to come together, support the vulnerable among us and foster national pride and cohesion. I, therefore, support the amended Motion as proposed by the hon Member Darryl David.
Order. I propose to take a break now. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair at 5.30 pm. Order.
Sitting accordingly suspended
at 5.09 pm until 5.30 pm.
Sitting resumed at 5.30 pm
[Deputy Speaker (Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo) in the Chair]
SPORTING SUCCESS
Debate resumed.
Ms He Ting Ru.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, today, I will speak about the development of Singapore as a sporting nation for all. I believe that sporting success, as the original Motion calls for, should not only be measured in terms of winning medals and doing well in various rankings, but also measured in terms of wider participation in sports across all segments of society.
Specifically, I will talk about how we do on accessibility and participation in sports and how this measurement should form an important part of our national developmental dashboard, an idea I first raised in Parliament in early 2022. I will also touch on inclusion in sports, from how we provide for the mental well-being of our athletes, to the crucial and important role that sports play to work with and support persons with disabilities and also neurodiverse individuals.
SportSG recently released its National Sport Participation Survey (NSPS), which took place for the five years between 2018 and 2022. It tracks sports participation across a few indicators and it is heartening to see that, for once, there appears to be a positive correlation associated with the pandemic: that regular sports participation rates increased to an all-time high of 74% last year. This is clearly an achievement worth celebrating and I hope that this can be maintained.
Yet, we must continue to improve, to look to countries like Norway, where in 2021 a whopping 97% of those aged 16 and above participated in outdoor activities and 86.9% stated that they had participated in various exercise activities.
We should include measures of sporting success as part of a development dashboard tracking our country's holistic development. If we want to shift our focus towards holistic societal well-being rather than keeping a narrow focus on an increasingly outdated measure that is GDP, sports indicators should be one of the first places we should look at.
This is because, one, access to sports needs to be a right for residents in Singapore, especially as it embodies dignity, equality and other values Singaporeans agree should form the core of our society.
Two, sports are instrumental to many other things we see as important to our well-being, including our physical and mental health, and play an important role in other national priorities, including fostering national cohesion and the creation of sustainable good jobs.
As my WP colleagues have spoken about participation in sports at the top levels, I would like to share some observations about more general participation in sports in our daily life, which I believe should be a key part of our measurement of sporting success.
Besides the obvious benefits outlined above, I believe participation in sports at any level can teach us many life lessons that will stand us in good stead as we go along our path in life. I was, for most of my early years, fairly bookish and sedentary and did not particularly enjoy any type of physical activity. Yet, this changed at university, when I was persuaded by friends to attend a football training session for our college one weekend in my first week.
Still a little homesick and coming to terms with a new life in a foreign land miles from home, and despite never having watched the game beyond clips of highlights occasionally on TV as I was growing up, my curiosity got the better of me. It was to be the start of my three-year journey with what eventually became known as the Corpus Terriers, as we cobbled together a ragtag group of students – both undergraduates and postgraduates – to become a good enough team that progressed from the bottom league, to gaining promotion twice to the league above in the university league tables.
By my second year, I was having such fun being part of the football team that I doubled down and agreed to also join the college rowing team and was part of the first eight that year.
What participation in these sports taught me was not about winning or losing, but about the importance of perseverance and being there for your teammates. It did not matter if you were out in a nightclub or panic writing an essay until three in the morning the night before. Come 6.30 the next morning, whatever the weather, you were expected to be there on the river, ready to start training, or else you would be the reason the rest of the team was unable to go out on the water.
I have many memories of having to row on with ice forming on our blades, of beautiful winter sunrises seen on the river and of having to play on in horrible winter drizzle, rain and mud, and of having to swap the footballs midway through a match to fluorescent snow-balls in order to be able to see through the fog.
The time we spent together as friends, as a team, on the river and the playing fields, more than the hours spent trying to make sense of dense and opaque scientific journal articles, is what I remember when I think of my time at university almost two decades on. They also gave us important lessons in grit, resilience, risk-taking and the importance of having one another's backs – skills that ring through across so many areas of life long after leaving the formal education system. It also teaches us how to deal with often very strong negative emotions in a healthy manner. Experiencing first-hand the physical and mental health benefits of participating in sports made it easier for me to make a conscious effort to carve out time and to seek out suitable sporting activities to fit my current circumstances despite busy work and family schedules, especially here in Singapore.
What these experiences taught me is that we need to work to ensure that all of us – no matter who or where we are in life – are able to understand the benefits of sports – particularly organised sports – and reap these benefits.
Starting from our very young, we have to continue to work to make sports and physical activity fun for all children and find ways to sustainably incorporate it into daily life in a way that complements and not competes with academic learning. It can be as simple as stopping ourselves from shouting at our young children to stop when they have a sudden impulse to run or jump, but instead pause and ask them how they can run or jump in a manner that is both safe and situationally appropriate. As our children grow up, the sporting ecosystem has to evolve to be supportive and accessible enough to allow them to choose a sport they enjoy and have an interest in, at a level of participation they are comfortable with and that fits into their current life circumstances.
And while we are on the topic of participation, we also must not neglect the important role of our participation in sports as spectators. While the National Sport Participation Survey (NSPS) found that there appeared to be high levels of positive responses associated with a sense of national pride in our achievements in sports, how does this translate into attendance at live sporting events? After all, any competitive athlete will tell you that competing live is a truly unique and irreplaceable experience, and that the roar of the crowd is often instrumental in their performance during the match or race, and home support can make the difference between victory or defeat.
Yet, this seems to be an area which we struggle with. One highly publicised example in recent months was the cap that the Football Association of Singapore applied to limit the number of fans for Team Singapore football friendly matches at the National Stadium to a paltry 5,000. Apart from being extremely frustrating for fans, attendance numbers today are also a far cry from the regular 50,000-strong crowds during our Malaysian Cup and Super League halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s. This is also a contrast against the huge queues with fans camping overnight for tickets to matches, which even resulted in a tragic stampede in 1977 which resulted in casualties and even a life lost. Contrast sports event attendance, too, to the fans who flooded the Internet and even started camping from yesterday for tickets for when Taylor Swift will play at the National Stadium next year.
Lack of spectator participation also was an issue when I assisted to organise an international wheelchair Rugby Fours tournament held at Toa Payoh Sports Hall and the Singapore Cricket Club, which was attended by teams from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Europe. Despite the skilled havoc on the court in play – making for a wonderful spectator experience – we struggled to get more than a handful of spectators to attend the matches in Toa Payoh. This was a point made by Rohit Brijnath, The Straits Times assistant sports editor, who compared this against the 300 to 400 fans who turned up in an earlier leg of the tournament in Palembang. It was a shame, particularly as the Singapore team comprised members with incredible stories that I believe would have been very inspirational to people who actually watched them play. My kids certainly still remember sitting in the stands and watching the matches and talk about it periodically, even today.
In view of the above, sports spectatorship should be studied as part of the National Sport Participation Survey (NSPS) and considered a key indicator of national development beyond GDP. Apart from the benefits I outlined earlier, exposure to sports, whether as spectators or otherwise, also exposes us to intangible lessons in terms of the culture surrounding various sports, such as the importance of focus and balance in tai chi and yoga, the importance of harmony in aikido, and the respect for the opponents in a sport like kendo, where participants do not celebrate scoring a point out of respect for your opponent who has after all trained as hard as you have.
Moving on to sporting success for people with disabilities, I am glad that we recognise its importance and that new initiatives continue to be launched, such as the Para Sport Academy last year and the move to make all ActiveSG gyms more inclusive by 2026. While I appreciate the need to develop specific hard infrastructure for people with disabilities to participate in some sports, we must put a lot more effort into growing broad, regular participation in sports for them.
For instance, the last Enabling Masterplan reported that the sports participation rate among persons with disabilities was approximately 50% in 2019, exceeding the target that was set. But the definition of the sports participation rate indicator only tracks whether an individual has participated in any sports or recreational physical activities in the past year. This definition is also different from the one used for the wider population in the National Sport Participation Survey (NSPS), which uses the headline definition of regular participation of at least once a week. It would be good to harmonise the indicators used to better understand where we stand.
Secondly, for people with disabilities participating or wanting to participate in sports at a recreational level, our residents shared that much of our urban environment continues to present significant barriers to participation. Particularly for running, walking and wheelchair use, cycle and walk paths often do not actually meet the Government's walking and cycling design guide specifications, despite these specifications already making large allowances for our urban density. There often does not seem to have any safe passing distance designed for walking and cycling paths for those with disabilities. For example, intra-town cycling paths can be designed to be just two metres in width. The guidelines also allow for designs encouraging footpath users to enter cycling paths to manoeuvre away from oncoming cyclists or pedestrians in cases where footpaths and cycling paths are next to each other, including in the case of wheelchair users. Running, walking and wheelchair use are among the most popular and lowest barrier to entry sports for people with disabilities. To get the basic building blocks for disability sports, we must first get everyday active mobility design right.
The Member for Aljunied GRC, Mr Leon Perera, also spoke earlier about lesser-known or less popular sports, and I note that this issue is even more pertinent for PWDs' participation in less popular sports. Many of us in this House lauded the achievements and success of our paralympians and, in particular, our para-equestrian athletes, such as Laurentia Tan, who was the first Asian woman to win a Paralympic medal in equestrian sport in Beijing 2008. It is of note that para-equestrian events have their roots in therapy riding. And equine-assisted therapy is widely known to have myriad benefits, ranging from benefiting mental health and well-being, to therapeutic horseback riding, all of which work to build core muscles, balance, confidence, sensory motor skills and are also extremely calming and relational. And these benefits accrue, too, to typical and non-disabled individuals.
Yet, in spite of this, only a small handful of Singaporeans have access to equine-related sports and therapy. Charities, such as Riding for the Disabled Association of Singapore, do excellent work with children and adults from Special Education (SPED) schools and Social Service Agencies (SSAs), and up to 7,000 individuals have benefited since its inception over 40 years ago.
But nonetheless, availability and accessibility to such sports remain extremely limited despite the known benefits. And I fear that the closure of the Singapore Turf Club, along with the expiry of leases to stables like the Bukit Timah Saddle Club to make way for residential or transport infrastructure, will only make these sports even more expensive and inaccessible to Singaporeans who could benefit tremendously, particularly as some retired race horses do eventually end up working as therapy horses or for other equestrian-related sports at our dwindling number of saddle clubs.
Uncertainty over whether the lease will be renewed or if the stables will continue to be allowed to operate only adds to the stresses that they face.
Horses aside, I also hope that, more generally, we also need to start paying more attention to accommodations that sporting participation – both as sportspeople and spectators – can make to cater to more diversity, particularly neurodiversity.
With latest estimates of 10% to 20% of the global population being neurodivergent, it is a significant group that we should not neglect. For example, individuals with sensory sensitivities or on the autism spectrum may find taking part in organised sports difficult to cope with because of the sensory input or unmet expectations, and I hope that parents and officials are given the right awareness and tools to know how best to cope with unexpected situations that arise. This could take the form of training officials and coaches to communicate more effectively with these individuals, to better awareness for parents about which sports may suit their child's specific needs. I also note that exhibits at places like KidsSTOP at the Science Centre have labels that stipulate sensory levels for various exhibits to aid parents to know whether the exhibit is suitable for their child, and perhaps the same system can be applied in the sporting context.
Finally, I would also like to draw attention to the increasing awareness of mental health in sports, with high-profile athletes, such as tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simone Biles, withdrawing from major competitions citing concerns over their mental well-being.
Far from resulting in the "wussification" of our top athletes, I note that greats from previous eras, such as Billie Jean King, have been equally outspoken about their concerns on this and do good work to increase awareness and support for current top athletes operating and competing in a brutal environment.
In turn, spectators and sports fans alike should also be aware of how we ventilate our frustrations when our team or our favourite athletes suffer defeats or setbacks, as seen from the wave of anger and abuse our Lions team and Joseph Schooling, for example, received online in recent times after painful losses.
Despite our disappointment, we must remember to continue standing behind our teams and athletes through thick and thin.
I also hope that our sports training programmes with the National Youth Sports Institute and other sports associations adequately prepare our often extremely young athletes for life as a professional athlete, which should go beyond how to cope on the pitch but also off the pitch, not just mental health and well-being but also in navigating media exposure and pressures online and off, and even making appropriate decisions over sponsorship and funding options.
In summary, today, I hope that we can have official performance indicators to more explicitly and holistically include key indicators for access and inclusivity in our sports ecosystem. Our agencies need to focus more on the fundamental issues that improve access and participation for all, especially persons with disabilities and different needs, which include ensuring our urban mobility standards are improved and followed properly by developers to help us keep on the path towards our aspirations with sports, as well as help us reap the significant social, economic and health benefits of becoming a sporting nation for all.
I support the Motion put forward by Sengkang GRC Member Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Aljunied GRC Member Mr Faisal Manap.
Ms Sylvia Lim.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, when I was in my 20s and 30s, I devoted time training and competing, particularly in middle-distance running. I was inspired by the athletes I watched in international competitions, pushing themselves beyond the limits of physical and mental boundaries, determined to fly their national flags high.
I am often left in awe, in the wake of sporting excellence – from Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci scoring perfect 10s in 1976 in Montreal, to earlier heroes like Emil Zatopek, who won the 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres and marathon in the same Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952, to our very own champions C Kunalan and Chee Swee Lee, to our Malaysia Cup winners playing the beautiful game.
For me, sporting excellence was and still is a pure form of sincerity and commitment to the nation. Putting it lyrically, it is poetry in motion.
By comparison, my own endeavours were modest. The pinnacle of my achievement was winning the ladies' section of the National University of Singapore's (NUS) mini-triathlon in my final year of undergraduate studies and, later, some cross-country runs in organisations that I worked for.
Nevertheless, modest as my endeavours were, I paid a physical price. I aggravated a hip problem and sustained cartilage tears which plagued my quality of life as I entered my 40s and 50s.
I stopped running, switched to modified and low impact activities like swimming and focused on recovery and strength building in order to age well.
I share this experience to illustrate what is but a fraction of what our national athletes do to their bodies, over and over again, at higher intensities and on a much larger scale.
The intensity and consistency one needs to put in to represent Singapore at global competitions, facing off against the best in the region and the world, is beyond imagination. Top athletes, such as golfing legend Tiger Woods and basketball sensation Yao Ming, had their sporting careers prematurely ended or cut short by injury. The mental pressure is another aspect which we are still learning more about, thanks to the likes of Japanese tennis star, Osaka Naomi.
As for sports-related physical injuries, they can persist for a long time, both in recreational and competitive athletes.
A recent Straits Times article found that youths have been suffering from sports-related injuries in the post-pandemic period at a higher rate and that injuries sustained in youth are likely to recur in some form later in life. Frequent or severe sports injuries may also put youths at risk of longer-term wear-and-tear-related degenerative conditions, such as osteoarthritis.
Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Tan Ken Jin shared his observations in a 2022 article entitled "10 Sports Injuries with Lifelong Consequences". The 10 lifelong sports injuries he pinpointed were sprains, hamstring strains, stress fractures, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, patella or kneecap dislocations, meniscus tears, tennis elbow, shoulder dislocations, sciatica or lower back pain and fractures. These injuries could have resulted from improper training practices, wearing improper sporting gear or basic elements like not having proper warm-ups or stretching.
Even with all these things done properly, getting injured is commonplace in competitive sports, particularly in high impact sports, such as basketball, soccer, badminton, tennis, volleyball, hockey and gymnastics. The injuries do not just go away when one stops competing. One lives with them.
More is also known today about latent injuries that emerge long after one's sporting days are over. There is an increasing concern, especially in contact and collision sports, about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a type of dementia caused by repeated head injuries that affect the brain's function over time.
In a 2022 study, researchers found that players of contact sports, such as American football, rugby and soccer, were 68 times more likely to develop CTE than those who were not. In fact, a group of former English and Welsh rugby players have initiated a class action lawsuit against their respective rugby governing bodies, asserting that they failed to protect players sufficiently in the sport, with many ending up with dementia or CTE later in life.
This knowledge has led to concerns amongst sporting bodies across the world and some have implemented changes to the rules of training and sports to reduce the risk to athletes.
So, how well covered are our national athletes against such long-term or latent injuries? When I asked a Parliamentary Question in January on insurance coverage for national athletes, the basic answer from the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth is that the coverage is there while the athlete is still representing Singapore.
Based on what we know now about sports injuries which are latent or have lifelong consequences, covering athletes only when they represent Singapore is clearly inadequate.
There is a joke about the Football Association of Singapore in this context – that FAS stands for "Forget After Service". To be fair to the FAS, we have noted their recent efforts to provide career support to former players, which is a step in the right direction. Even so, the injuries and their long-term impact on function and quality of life remain.
A friend of mine who used to be a national hockey player, reflected on his life and the injuries he sustained and concluded that it was simply not worth it.
Madam, the contributions of our national athletes are beyond reimbursements and compensations. While they commit to sporting excellence, their careers and other life decisions may be put on hold. Their education may get delayed and they may lose work or business opportunities in the prime of their lives. It will also not be possible to trace back the amount of personal and family resources ploughed into training and getting to the levels they have achieved.
So, what can the country do? There is one low-hanging fruit that I think we can and must do. Provide all national athletes with medical subsidies for the duration of their lifetimes. Such a gesture is appropriate as it acknowledges the physical toil that highly competitive sports take on one's well-being and that it is only right that society contributes more to those who have served to bring glory to the nation on the world stage.
Since our national athletes are covered while serving, these subsidies should kick in after they have retired from representing Singapore.
As to who should qualify for such coverage, this should be further discussed. One possibility is to include Singaporeans who have represented the nation in any internationally recognised sport for at least a year.
As to how to peg the amount of subsidies, this should be worked out. What is important is that the subsidies lessen the out-of-pocket healthcare expenses of former national athletes, compared to other citizens. Even a further subsidy of just 10% or 20% more would be a powerful signal that society has not forgotten about them and respects their sacrifice and service.
To this end, I call for the setting up of a multidisciplinary task force. The task force will work on a scheme to give additional subsidies to former national athletes for their treatment costs for sports-related conditions so long as the treatment is sought in our public healthcare institutions.
To manage the cost to the national budget, the scheme should be scoped in terms of who should qualify and what the quantum of subsidies should be. As for the composition of the task force, I would suggest the inclusion of medical and sports science scholars and professionals who would advise on the types of injuries and conditions that are associated with competitive sports. It should also include Government officials from the relevant agencies, such as SportSG and the Ministries of Health and Finance.
Madam, as a side note, it has been suggested to me that in speaking on this topic on our retired athletes, I should declare an interest as my partner is a former and retired sports star. I can assure the House and the public that I have no pecuniary interest in this matter as he pays his own medical bills.
Madam, let me conclude. In my speech, I have focused on how we should do right for our national athletes in terms of supporting their healthcare needs over their lifetimes. As a citizen of Singapore, I do not wish to see our sporting heroes worry about their medical bills. I believe we should look seriously into providing lifetime medical subsidies for our national athletes.
I wish to conclude by quoting the American running legend, Carl Lewis. He once said, "I want to be remembered as a person who felt that there was no limitation to what the human body and mind can do and be the inspiration to lead people to do things they never hoped to do."
Sports do that – uplifting all of us in good times and bad. For the pride and joy that our national athletes have brought us, we can do this bit more for them. [Applause.]
Mr Xie Yao Quan.
Madam, sports are a mirror reflecting the heart and soul of a nation, a society. And by "sports" in this context, I mean sports in which our fellow countrymen and women don the national colours, wear the national flag on their sleeves or chests and go out there and compete. Sports, in this way, are a mirror that reflects the heart and soul of our nation.
I wish to make two points around this theme.
First, sports reflect our values as a people – whether we only celebrate success, achievements, outcomes or whether we value equally or perhaps, even more, the process, journey and pursuit of excellence. It reflects whether we are fair-weather fans who only partake in our fellow countrymen and women's victories or whether we stand by them all the way, through their ups and downs, and let them know that we are there for them as they give their all for us and for the nation, day in, day out, in training and in competition.
So, in this regard, what is success? What does success look like? What should success – what should a broader conversation on our goals in sports, as a nation, beyond medals and victories – look like?
In this regard, I support what my Parliamentary colleague, Mr Darryl David, said earlier about helping our athletes to cope with stress. While we have high hopes for our athletes, we must be careful that these do not add to the stress and demands on our athletes. While we strive for sports excellence, it is also crucial to take care of our athletes' mental well-being, especially when overly high public expectations are placed on them and when they come under the glare of the mainstream and social media.
We need to be proactive in identifying and supporting athletes who may need help and we need to help our athletes develop the skills and the mental resilience they need to deal with the demands they face, including in their post-athlete careers and lives.
And I am glad to note that the Singapore Sports Institute (SSI) and the National Youth Sports Institute (NYSI) have been organising and committing their resources to do just these.
But, ultimately, while we have expectations of our athletes' performance, achievements and success, let us also celebrate their journey, their pursuit of excellence, their pushing of boundaries and their maximum potential to become – again, in Mr Darryl David's words – the best version of themselves and let us support them in their downs as much as their ups. I think that is how we, as a nation, should show up for our athletes and that should underpin our goals for sports in Singapore.
Second, if sports are to be a mirror that reflects the heart and soul of our society, it must mean that sports are a national project that involves all of us – athletes, sports entities, individuals, corporate supporters, civic society, alongside the Government – all of us coming together, for each and every sport, but in different ways for different sports, according to their different contexts and needs. And this national project will be a constant work in progress, constantly evolving, but all of us, coming together, that is the key and in different ways, for different sports.
Specifically, for emerging sports and niche sports, all of us got to find a way to come together and support these sports because resources of the whole ecosystem are finite and we cannot avoid the need to prioritise. All of us got to come together and find sensible, creative ways to best support emerging and niche sports.
And I am glad to see that the Government is doing its part and playing a very active role in supporting emerging and niche sports. So, let me talk a little bit about this.
Take skydiving or, more precisely, competitive indoor skydiving. It is quite niche, certainly not for everyone. But 21-year-old Kyra Poh is already a world champion and a household name. And I am happy to note that she is currently being supported under the spexScholarship, the first for a sport not featured in the Major Games. I applaud SportSG for taking this broader view to the spexScholarship to more closely support our young Singaporeans' diverse ambitions and aspirations across various niches.
Or take sport climbing, break dancing, or breaking for short, and skateboarding. Quite niche. But I know that the NYSI has started engaging our young talents in these sports even before they become part of the Major Games programmes. For example, as early as 2017, the NYSI has already started supporting skateboarder Shadiq, who was at that time only 16 years old, by sending him to the UK Talent Inspiration Programme. Today, the Institute has a speed climbing wall which our climbers use regularly to hone their skills. And corporates and Singaporeans at large can also play a part by contributing to the Athletes' Inspire Fund (AIF), to support these athletes to represent Singapore at international competitions. So, those are niche sports.
For emerging sports, tchoukball is a good example. And before I carry on, I thought it is important that I raise this factual clarification after listening both the speeches of hon Members Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Leon Perera. Tchoukball does have an NSA. In fact, the Tchoukball Association of Singapore (TBAS) has been a national federation since 2018. That status was updated this year. So, they have NSA status and they are recognised as an NSA. I thought this is important and a basic clarification that I thought I should make.
In any case, many of us would have heard of our national women's tchoukball team making history by becoming the world No 1 for the first time earlier this year after they won powerhouse Chinese Taipei at the 2022 Asia Pacific Tchoukball Championships in Malaysia.
The President of TBAS, Mr Delane Lim, happens to be my resident. And so, through my conversations with him, I have learnt a lot about the fascinating journey of tchoukball in Singapore. And what struck me about their journey were two things: one, the passion of Delane, his team at the Association, his athletes and the entire tchoukball community for the sport; two, the strength of the support of corporates and individuals that the Association has been able to galvanise throughout their journey so far. Their latest fundraising campaign I heard was very successful.
I am heartened to see this and I think this story of how everyone has been coming together to support and play a part in the achievements of the national tchoukball teams is something that we should be equally proud of, quite apart from the team's achievements themselves. And I understand that the Government has been playing a very active role, too, alongside the athletes, the NSA and civil society.
Our tchoukball players use the gym at the NYSI and the strength and conditioning specialists there have created a programme to help the team. SportSG has also provided sport psychology resources to help the teams in their mental preparation for tournaments and I am told this is making a big difference.
The Association is not only driving our national excellence in tchoukball. It is also looking to put Singapore on the regional and world maps for tchoukball. So, they are also looking to host regional and world tournaments and I understand SportSG has provided key support for these aspirations. In fact, in the next two weeks, the Association will be hosting the World Youth Championship 2023 and the South East Asia Tchoukball Championship 2023. These will be held at the ActiveSG Pasir Ris Sport Centre and I understand that SportSG has provided this venue free of charge. I will be going down to support the national teams and the Association in these tournaments and I look forward to a wonderful showing of skills and heart from the teams.
Madam, let me conclude. I believe sports are a mirror that reflects the heart and soul of our nation and our society. This means that success and our broader goals as a nation with regard to sports must be about how we support every sport and every sportsperson, every athlete, at every step of the journey, whether the sport or sportsperson is emerging, reaching a peak, staying at the peak or, indeed, going through the important and necessary valleys and downslopes en route to the peaks. It is about how we show up throughout the journey.
It is also, fundamentally, about coming together – athletes, sports entities, individuals and corporate supporters, civic society, alongside the Government, forging a compact. Inevitably, the Government will be the biggest animal in the jungle. But precisely because of this, it behoves the Government to exercise wisdom while playing an active role in the ecosystem, always looking to get things done through partnerships, indeed, enabling, empowering and strengthening various partners and stakeholders in the ecosystem and finding different ways to go far together in different sports, including in emerging and niche sports. And I have to stress this: the basic orientation for us has to be to go far together, rather than to go fast on any of our own. We play the long game; we take the long view.
And the final point, Madam, because sports are a mirror that reflects the heart and soul of our nation and our society, fundamentally, sports should unite, not divide. Sports must unite. Therefore, we do not need to exaggerate differences when there are few and we should celebrate common ground where there is plenty of such.
In this debate, I have seen and heard, first and foremost, a shared sense and a shared desire for sports in Singapore to help our athletes reach their maximal potential, to rally our communities and to strengthen our sense of togetherness and national pride.
So, for these reasons, I support the spirit of the original Motion but I also support the amendments to the Motion as proposed by Mr Darryl David, to better reflect and encapsulate what, ultimately, we all want for sports in Singapore.
Mr Mark Chay.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, sport is more than just a game. It is a powerful force that can shape a nation's identity, unite its people and even transform the world.
Sporting achievements matter to a nation because they go beyond more athletic prowess. They embody the values, aspirations and spirit of the people, whether it is the roar of the stadium packed with loyal fans or the sight of the national team standing proudly on the podium. Sporting events have the power to bring a nation to life in ways that few other things can.
Through sports, nations learn about teamwork, perseverance and the importance of hard work. Sporting achievements inspire young people to pursue their dreams and they serve as a reminder to all that, with dedication and commitment, anything is possible.
In short, sporting achievements matter to a nation because they are a source of pride, a symbol of hope and a celebration of what we can accomplish when we come together as one.
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to function in various roles and capacities in the sports industry. Sports have had a significant impact on my being and, because of this, I am thankful to join the debate on this Motion put forth by Members Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap about sports. And this is my last speech as a Nominated Member of Parliament.
This Motion is very wide and covers an array of complex topics and I would like to ask the hon Members in this House to indulge me as I plunge into my own sporting journey and share my experiences and thoughts on Singapore's sporting ecosystem.
I would like to declare that I am the President of Singapore Aquatics, a Bureau member of World Aquatics, Executive Director of Global Esports Federation and a member of Olympic Council of Asia's Athletes Commission.
In Singapore, there are various bodies that work together with a shared goal of promotion and development of sports locally.
There is MCCY, SportSG and the NYSI, the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC), the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Singapore Sports School, the NSAs, private clubs and academies. This is a very comprehensive list and I hope I did not miss anyone out.
But SNOC and NSAs are non-government organisations that cooperate with Government and non-Government bodies to fulfil their objectives. SNOC promotes the general interest of sports in Singapore to develop and protect the Olympic movement in Singapore and to plan, select and administer any Singapore team with respect to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or Olympic Games Federation, other organisations and the like.
NSAs are concerned with the promotion of the development of the sport in Singapore. From Singapore Aquatics' perspective, our mission is to make every Singaporean a swimmer. But what does that actually mean?
I can broadly segment this out into three groups. The first is sports initiation; the second is development; and the third is high performance.
And as hon Member Ms Poh Li San has alluded in her speech, grassroots and community sports are important to the pipeline of our athletes. A more senior sports administrator told me – and I hold this to heart – that without our pipeline, we have no lifeline.
At the sports initiation level, the aim is to introduce sports and equip participants with foundational skills in order to enjoy sports safely.
Singapore Aquatics works with SwimSafer as well as members and other private sector partners to implement learn-to-swim programmes for the public. Singapore Aquatics trains the coaches, together with Coach SG and Safe Sport. This course equips coaches with the necessary pedagogical skills to enable swimmers at a young age to attain the skills in a safe and productive environment. From a regulatory perspective, Singapore Aquatics has a registry of coaches which it maintains with Coach SG, and coaches who go against the Code of Conduct may be suspended.
However, this enforcement is effective primarily on coaches that practise in public pools or MOE programmes. I have raised this concern in the House. And I am working with MCCY on this and believe we are closer today than we were yesterday in regulating coaches who practise in private pools and condos and this will go a long way in ensuring that all coaches are competent and have the necessary safety skills and training to teach water safety safely in any environment.
At the development level, participants take part in organised sports programmes. They learn how to train and practise and, at the more advanced levels, the athletes learn how to compete in a structured environment. Most of the activities are done at the community level with Singapore Aquatics members, Active SG and its academies.
And at the pinnacle of sports, Singapore Aquatics runs high-performance programmes for its national teams in its five aquatic sports – swimming, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and water polo. This relates to the hiring and appointment of national coaches and technical directors, the training environment and sending teams to appropriate level competitions, nomination of athletes to SNOC for major games and selection of national teams to the World Championships.
At this juncture, I am really happy to report that Singapore Aquatics will be sending 11 swimmers, 12 artistic swimmers, three open water swimmers and three divers to the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka next week. All 29 athletes have qualified and are accompanied by 15 coaches and officials.
In terms of support, the Singapore Sport Institute (SSI) provides funding and administrative support and sports science support to win at the world-class level. More specifically, winning at the world stage today is hard. The infrastructural and programming requirements are immense. In previous speeches I made in Parliament, I mentioned that the athlete entourage has grown. The demands on the athletes have also increased and the pressures remain about social media and athletes staying longer in the sport have increased the opportunity cost, which is why I believe that more needs to be done for the mental well-being of our athletes.
Yes, Singapore can do it and we have proven that we can achieve, with world champions in badminton, silat, bowling and swimming.
For the top athletes who have the potential to do well on the global stage, we have the spexScholarships which give adequate financial support for our athletes to achieve and, as our athletes continue to improve and more frequently achieve global standards and results, we do need to upskill our administrators and scientists in order to meet the requirements, demands and complexity of having a world-class team, which is why I also believe that we should not only support our athletes but the teams which work with them as well.
As Members know, I was a coach of our World and Paralympic Champion Yip Pin Xiu. Together, we achieved four world championship titles, two para golds and seven world records. A large part of our success was because she is, of course, a phenomenal athlete and has a great ethic. But, more importantly, I was able to relate – as a former athlete – and communicate to her in high-performance terms.
I was also able to manage myself under high-pressure situations. Oftentimes, we talked about the athlete entourage but the coaches' entourage is also just as important.
As we develop more high-performance coaches, we should also look at their mental well-being as well. Coaches are with the athletes every hour, every step of the way, every stroke. Travelling with the athletes overseas at competitions and camps, for every moment the coach is not on deck or on the track, they are thinking about the next session and how to extract the best out of their athletes. This is why I would like to ask SSI to consider supporting our coaches and administrators as well.
At this juncture, I would also like to address the hon Member Mr Leong Mun Wai's comments on Soh Rui Yong's non-selection for the 2023 Asian Games.
I had earlier clarified with the hon Leader of the Opposition that Mr Soh can continue to represent Singapore at the Singapore Athletics' meets. On the non-selection of the Asian Games, SNOC had given Mr Soh a second chance to compete at the SEA Games in Cambodia after the Appeals Committee considered Singapore Athletics' nomination of Mr Soh. The Appeals Committee was satisfied and sent Mr Soh to the 2023 SEA Games. Mr Soh signed the Letter of Undertaking; and in spite of that, he made disparaging comments on social media after the SEA Games.
I would like to ask the hon Member why he would continue to support the nomination of this athlete who has been given a second chance and knowingly breaks the undertaking and commitment.
On the topic of disability sports, I believe things are moving forward with the Disability Master Plan. We see more para-athletes doing well at the international level. I believe that with the ActiveSG Academies, access to disability's specific sports programmes is being implemented.
I am also happy to note that private sports clubs like ART Aquatics and Pin Xiu's Apex Swim Club are providing swimming programmes for children with special needs.
High-performance sports take up the most resources at NSAs and NSAs work closely with SSI to plan and implement policies for its athletes.
As some hon Members, such as Ms Poh Li San and Mdm Deputy Speaker Jessica Tan, who are Presidents of NSAs would know, SportSG looks at annual grant funding in periods of three to five years. Although the funding is assessed and disbursed annually, NSAs need to take a long-term view on athlete development.
Key sports are also included in the 2024, 2028 meetings where NSAs work together with Sport SG to look at accomplishments at the world and Olympic levels. In fact, Singapore Aquatics is already identifying athletes and preparing these athletes for 2029.
Because of this planning required by SportSG, NSAs, like Singapore Aquatics, can see to their continued success. At the 2023 Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia, Singapore Aquatics returned with 23 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze medals.
Therefore, I would like to join Members Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap in their Motion to celebrate the achievements of our athletes at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia. Well done, Team Singapore!
As mentioned earlier, I would like to say that the NSAs, with Government and non-Government agencies, are consistently evaluating the systems and have clear, reliable, reasonable goals many years in advance.
And I welcome the hon Member Mr Darryl David's amendments "That this House celebrates the accomplishments of our athletes and para-athletes, including at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and the 12th ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia, and calls on the Government to continue its thorough evaluation of the areas of improvement in Singapore's sporting ecosystem, and commit to realising our goals in sports over the coming decade."
Deputy Speaker, I have had a very exciting sporting journey. In 2000, at the age of 18, I represented Singapore at the Sydney Olympic Games. That year, I was ranked first in Asia in the 200-metre freestyle. I have been the CEO of an NSA and currently the President of one. I have had the good fortune of being a world champion coach. I was on SNOC's exco and I am serving in various capacities in international sporting organisations.
I have seen and experienced various systems and models internationally. Hand on heart, Singapore has a good ecosystem which balances Government, non-government and private sector needs. There is no perfect system in the world, but this is a system that works in Singapore for Singapore. I am excited by the amendments to the Motion that we will continue to not only refine it for our needs and the changing requirements but also to have a commitment from this House that we will commit to realising our ambitions for high-performance sports over the coming decade.
I am thrilled to support these amendments to the Motion.
I would like to raise three key issues and I agree with hon Member Leon Perera that we can improve. I have the following suggestions – so, please bear with me.
One, access to facilities. Many NSAs and clubs require facilities around programmes. I would like to encourage ActiveSG, together with MOE schools, to unlock their facilities to enable NSAs and the public to run their programmes there.
Two, National Service. I would be the first to say that I have never swum faster than I did after National Service (NS), not because I was not allowed the time to train but because I sustained a career-ending injury right before enlistment. I actually went to Central Manpower Base (CMPB) and enlisted, on crutches.
And I would like to acknowledge hon Sylvia Lim's suggestions about post-career injuries and how we can better support our athletes. I think this goes a long way to show appreciation for our athletes who have sacrificed so much.
I believe that NS is essential and every male Singaporean has to do it. The question is "when". To be fair, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) has allowed short-term and long-term deferments to allow national athletes to pursue their athletic goals before enlisting.
What is even more encouraging is that MINDEF has started to engage directly with NSAs through MCCY. In November 2022, MINDEF met up with the NSAs to talk about NS and its schemes to support our sportsmen. I believe these schemes are fair and our athletes have been very receptive to the flexibility given to them to train, prepare and compete.
Three, taking competitive sports beyond school years. I spoke at the Committee of Supply (COS) about how Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) should play a part in teaching students how to work and exercise. I would like to encourage SportSG to look at competitive sports as a lifelong journey – encourage Silver Leagues and masters competitions, give people a reason to stay active other than for health benefits.
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the hon Member Gerald Giam's comments about parents and how important a part they play in a child's sporting journey. As a parent of a young child myself, I hope to be a sporting parent like Mr Giam. We cannot overstate the importance of parents in Singapore's sporting success.
In conclusion, sports are important not only for individuals who participate in them but also for society as a whole. At the highest level of competition, sports inspire us with the incredible feats of athleticism and determination that are possible when we push ourselves to our limits.
Beyond the spectacle of competition, sports promote discipline, dedication and perseverance. Athletes who train and compete at that level, learn to set goals, work hard and overcome adversity. They develop their skills and abilities to reach new heights of achievements, showing us what is possible when we apply ourselves to a challenge.
Moreover, sports provide powerful role models for our young people, inspiring them to pursue their passions and believe in themselves. They show us that with hard work, dedication and perseverance, we can achieve great things and make a positive impact on the world around us.
Finally, sports have the power to bring people together, promote unity and understanding across cultures and national boundaries. They provide a common ground where people can connect and share in the joy of competition and achievement, fostering friendship and goodwill amongst individuals and nations alike.
Through sports, Singaporeans can push ourselves to new levels of achievement and inspire others to do the same, building a brighter future for us and generations to come.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the athletes, the volunteers, coaches, administrators and scientists for their tireless work that they do to help our future sports stars achieve their dreams and put Singapore on the map of sports.
Mdm Deputy Speaker, as I am the last Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) to speak in the last session of our term, if I may, I would, on behalf of the NMPs – Ms Janet Ang, Dr Tan Yia Swam, Dr Shahira Abdullah, Prof Hoon Hian Teck, Prof Koh Lian Pin, Mr Cheng Hsing Yao, Mr Raj Joshua Thomas and Mr Abdul Samad – to thank everyone – all the hon Members here, the staff in Parliament, everyone here, for this incredible opportunity and journey. Faster, higher, stronger, together. [Applause.]
Leader of the Opposition.
Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. Just a quick series of questions for the NMP. He raised the matter of Rui Yong again and I think my speech made it quite clear where I stood on the matter.
Just to confirm the point, I think he put the question as to whether Rui Yong has been disparaging and so forth. I have not made the point in my speech that discipline and all these other important things in sports are not important. But I would like to ask the Member does he advocate a system where it is "two strikes and you are out"?
I mean, the episode can be resolved in other ways and I have made my point why I think it could be resolved in other ways.
Would he join me in advocating for more dispute resolution mechanisms that can build bridges and, in his words, "unite" rather than "divide"? Rui Yong is a flag bearer for Singapore. And I think we can consider how best to rehabilitate him and keep working on ensuring that "we come together as a nation with a view to sporting excellence". Will the Member join me in supporting him?
Thank you, Mdm Deputy Speaker. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question and clarifications. Again, I think sports is a continuing journey. I do not speak on behalf of SNOC, but I think the door is not closed. Again, these are decisions made by SNOC and not by myself.
I think if Rui Yong is truly sorry and he really wants to move forward and wants to be a great ambassador for sports, the door is probably not closed.
We just need to move the Exempted Business Motion so that we can continue with the Motion. Deputy Leader.
PAPERCUTS