Point
of View
With conclusion of the 2004 season, the question now is what views one
can draw from it. It could be either positives or negative but there were a few
topics I had views on.
Right from the start the old topic of youth development rear it head when
the Young Lions abandon it previous goal to only draw fringe players from the
clubs. With the Young Lions finishing third in the league one can easily say it
was in the right step but let not be too haste for the topic here is youth
development. The 20 players of the Young Lions squad called up at the start of
the season (Excluded foreign & overage players) showed many players like Lionel Lewis, Hassan Sunny, Mahathir Nasir, Juraimie Dawood, Baihakki Khaizan, Ridhuan Muhamad, Mustaqim Manzur, Syed Fadhil,
Jamil Ali, Shahril Ishak and Agu Casimir could have started
in the lineup of the teams they were playing for so it is no longer a matter of
giving younger players experience. That is not correct in view of youth
development.
Still one
can understand the possible various reasons behind the change in goal from
unwillingness to place developing players under a rookie coach to ensuring any
future national team build up team spirit but there is a need to balance
things. Fringe players could be diamonds waiting to be discovered and they need
games in a tougher environment than the Prime League to ensure they can shine
out. One only needs to look at the development of Farizal
Basri this season and Aliff Shafaein last
season with both were fringe players at their clubs before the call-up but it
would no longer be the case now
If the Young Lions did that, it will
help supplement the youth development of the clubs especially as at the moment
in my views only 2 clubs, Geylang United and Home
United, are doing a decent job of developing players. In youth development the
Eagles have no match with the pillars of the National Team almost exclusively
from them showing the great job they have been doing while the Protectors are
bearing the fruit of labour for the policies they
pursed as this season players like Imran Sahib, Ratna Suffian and Ridzuan Fatah Hasan
under them have developed beyond the wildest imagination.
Nevertheless youth development did take
a small significant step forward with the forming of the National Under-21
towards the tailing end of the season but up to now the more significant step
of forming the COE for the Under-14 and below still have not gained the urgent momentum even with the appointment of the
new Technical Director of Football P N Sivaji early
this year. The age of the base for providing the next generation of players
have to be younger and every year it is delayed there is wastage of talents.
Along the way during the season, other topics took on a more significant notice and one was the media. The saying ‘who
need enemies with friends like them’ sound more than appropriate for the local
media as the general reporting on local sports (Not just football) is more than
disappointing.
Splitting up SPH & MediaCorp reporting, one must ask if any SPH sports
reporters are based in
On the other side, with the contract
from S-league MediaCorp reporting is clearly leap
& bound above the SPH two English papers but one must wonder if they would
have done as good a job if the contract was not won by them. Still it would be
unfair to claim otherwise as MediaCorp are doing a
much better job than their rival.
Nevertheless if local sport still does
not get better mileage from SPH it is difficult to see a change in situation as
SPH control almost the entire printing media industry in
If the media was not helping, neither
was the marketing by SBU. Formed to help S-league with marketing, one must
questioned the focus of SBU. Since May this year SBU constantly break out news
on the entry of foreign clubs to S-league pushing the title race into the back
pages. It was an exciting season & the marketing focus should have been on
the three way battle between Tampines Rovers, Home
United and Young Lions but other than being at the matches one would not have
felt it at all. There were simply no marketing on the three clubs or the title
race. It would not have cost the sky to produce posters like those of the
Sultan of Selangor Cup or programme
sheets about the clubs, players & important matches to draw fans attention.
Instead one read about Chinese, Indian, African & even Malaysian clubs
joining the league as being the top stories released by SBU. A golden chance in
promoting the league was wasted.
From that it is time to turn the focus
on the topic of a Super Club and Asian International Club competition. There
could be some reacting with horrors on the idea of a Super Club emerging as it
would return back to the days when Geylang
International override all in the old Singapore Premier League (SPL) or for the
more European knowledge the other SPL, the Scottish Premier League, where
Celtics and Rangers are in a league of their own.
While that may come true, one must not
discard the pro of a Super Club in the S-league as such a club would have the
pulling power to bring sponsors and fans that would otherwise not have enter
the picture. Also the problem of a Super Club totally dominating the league is
more the result of other clubs unable to step up the extra miles to meet the
challenges rather than the fault of the Super Club. Turning to European Leagues
like Dutch and Portuguese League, both leagues also have Super Clubs dominating
the league but outside of these group of Super Clubs there are clubs who
constantly step up to meet their challenge improving the quality of the league.
This showed the most aspect of Super Clubs which is enhancing the league. The
Super Clubs will have the ability to lead the way and once clubs outside the
Super Clubs group are willing to emulate the Super Clubs not in term of
finance, but in the way it does things then there is every hope that those
clubs can improve enhancing the league in the process.
At the same time a Super Club emerging
would also be timely because of the creation of Asian International Club
competitions like the Asian Champion League (ACL) and Asian Confederation Cup
(AFC Cup). The importance of such Asian International Club competitions cannot
be underestimated for players spend most of their time developing with clubs
and not the National Team. Therefore it is of utmost importance for as many
Also to fully develop the potential,
players must be constantly playing in Asian International Club competitions not
just a one off. Taking Protectors and Eagles, playing in this season AFC Cup,
as example - From the past five years, Protectors had been involved for four
years while Eagles just involved in two years so a talented player with
Protectors would no doubt developed better under the new environment.
The best thing though is adapting to
environment unfamiliar to ASEAN. Just recently, the
Finally towards the end of the season
the topics of finance and foreign clubs appeared on the radar.
When Tampines
Rovers won the league title apart from the fans, players and coaching staffs one
would also expect the financial side of the club to be up in arms as well for
the financial rewards it could bring to the club coffers but it is not the case
in the S-league. It could cost up to $2 million for any club to equip
themselves to challenge for the league title but winning the title itself only
bring a mere prize of $120000 and even with the possibility potential sponsors
could come forwards with a title victory it still does not make sense for the
investments pumped in. Therefore it is a shocked at this junction; the league
justified the decision to provide foreign clubs with seed money. It does not
matter whether the money came out of another budget, the fact is the sum next
year could come up to $300000 and even more in the years to come so in 3 years
time the $1 million mark would have been breached yet during the same 3 years
the total prize money for final placing in the league would not have even
crossed three-quarter of that. Without increasing the prize money, the league cannot
say local clubs do not wish to stand on their own for the league are not
installing the correct environment for it. Only with better incentives can
better-run local clubs have the necessary funds to develop at a more rapid rate
and in future be able stand on their own without the aid of the league seed
money.
Also with better incentives the
foreign clubs would be of better quality for at the moment neither Sinchi nor Albirex Niigata can be
considered better than average. I cannot buy into the argument that a foreign
club winning the S-league would be a national shame for what use are foreign
clubs if at best they are only going to be mid-table teams. Any local clubs
could achieve that and if the main purpose for foreign clubs is to be just feeder
clubs for their parent club back home (Like Albirex
Niigata) and not to challenge for the title then the argument for their
inclusion is meaningless.
After that one wonder if the lesson
about Sinchi debut had been learned for now a
No doubt out that there could be other
views on the same topics or on a bigger range of topics but for this person
these are what I could gather from the 2004 season and one hope when 2005
season come about certain things would be different