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"Vote For The New Beginning. Vote For The Future Of Singapore Football"

The "FAS Game Changers"

It is the determination to stop the rot in Singapore football that saw the assembling of the "FAS Game Changers" - a slate headed by Hougang United chairman Bill Ng for the upcoming landmark election that will see 44 eligible delegates to vote in a new 15-member Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Council at the end of the month.

"We are not quick fixer!" said Ng in his opening address at the unveiling of his slate and manifesto at The Clifford Pier before he went further to outline what he and his team plan to do if being voted into office on the 29th of April.

One of the first things to be looked into is the administrative issues which the businessman did not mince his words when he blasted the current FAS administrators for having "a huge coordinating problem in the secretarial office" that he felt "they don't know what they're doing".

Hougang United Chairman Bill Ng

However, he added he is willing to work with the present setup to resolve those nagging issues by reviewing the current practices with streamlining processes along the way.

The absence of the "brand equity" in the S.League is another area which Ng, a mergers and acquisition specialist by trade, hopes to look into to unlock the untapped marketing potential, so as to see the clubs achieve financial sustainability of their own and moved away from the "Godfather" model where clubs depend on their benefactors for their lifeline.

In order to attain that, one of the ways is to commercialize the league operations, as suggested by Tampines Rovers chairman Krishna Ramachandra, one of the four vice-presidential candidates of "FAS Game Changers", such as explore all forms of revenue-generating tools and shall not rely on a singular source of income.

Meanwhile, National Football League (NFL) side Kaki Bukit SC president
Zaki Ma'arof, another vice-presidential candidate of the slate, lamented the poor infrastructural problems his club and the rest of the lower-tier have to face.

"Without a proper field, there were times we can't do training like taking corners, etc." highlighted one of those woes by the former deputy president of the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce who also proposed a regular "round-table" meeting among the NFL clubs that hopes to serve as a platform to strengthen the communication between them and FAS.


Kaki Bukit SC's Zaki Ma'arof

Another notable proposal brought up during the unveiling is the reviving of the Singapore Business Houses League (SBHL), a popular competition in the last century that saw corporate entities with the likes of Singapore Airlines, Fraser and Neave (F&N) featured in the tournament.

The slate hopes a healthy ecosystem involving the NFL, SBHL together with the S.League will form a strong backbone for Singapore football.

Other speakers of the evening included two women candidates who are also named as the slate's vice-presidential candidates - Annabel Pennefather and Teoh Chim Sim who touched on issues pertaining to women's football and the importance of proper medical care for footballers respectively.

Both Pennefather and Teoh have impressive credentials for having served key positions in their specialized fields which will prove to be an asset to "FAS Game Changers" in their battle against another slate - "Team LKT", headed by former FAS deputy-president Lim Kia Tong.

Before the session adjourned for the media Q&A at the end of the unveiling of the manifesto, the slate's deputy-presidential candidate Lau Kok Keng sums up with this battle cry - "Vote For The New Beginning. Vote For The Future Of Singapore Football".

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