BoLASEPaKO•COM - A Blog on Singapore Football

Long before Lion City Sailors established themselves as the country's first privately-owned football club, there was at one point more than thirty years ago that one football club haboured a similar ambition to transform themselves into one as well. When the news of Lion City Sailors planning to have their own stadium surfaced in November 2021, I remember reading something similar in the papers back in the 1990s when I managed to retrieve that old news report from the archives recently. BLUEPRINT OF TAMPINES ROVERS "SPORTS CLUB" It was part of the ambitious blueprint of a National Football League ( NFL, now known as Singapore Football League ) Division One club - Tampines Rovers Sports Club ( hereafter to refer as "SC" in this article that is not to be confused with the Singapore Premier League club Tampines Rovers Football Club which later in this post will explain why ), when the news was first broke out by The New Paper back in January 1992 . TNP broke the ...

Indonesia (red) and Thailand (blue) are finalists of AFF Suzuki Cup 2020 Final (credit: Jaron Lee) While it may seem like a different concept when he made the suggestion in 1977, but the ongoing AFF Suzuki Cup - a tournament contested by Asean nations should be the brainchild of Indonesian Benny Moelyono. Speaking to The Straits Times during 1978 Pre-World Cup qualifiers, the then Indonesia assistant team manager proposed an "Asean Cup soccer tournament, run along the lines of the UEFA Cup" According to Moelyono, Asean "needs is a meaningful competition," and invitation tournaments like King's Cup (of Thailand), Merdeka Cup (Tournament of Malaysia) were for the "sake of it" which did not arouse national spirit like the Asean tournament he proposed. The idea of "Asean Cup" first mooted in 1977 (credit: NLB archive ) "I'm sure it would be a success. Besides helping Asean countries improve their soccer standards, the tournament would ...

Called it an obsession or mere British influence when it is not uncommon in this part of the world to name a football club as whatsoever "United". Just look around the region, you already have Buriram United, Bangkok United, and Muangthong United in Thailand where national custodian Hassan Sunny used to play for the dissolved Army United . Down south in Malaysia, there is a team rebranded as Kuala Lumpur United which is formerly known as Kuala Lumpur FA - the team that once boasted the likes of the Singapore triumvirate of Fandi Ahmad, Malek Awab, and K Kanan in their 1980s heydays. BRITISH INFLUENCE RESULTED IN "UNITED" EVERYWHERE? On the other end of the Causeway in Singapore, names like Farrer Park United and Toa Payoh United were some of those listed in the then-newly formed National Football League (NFL) in the mid-1970s. Moving into the mid-1990s, these were the names to mark the start of the professional era like Geylang United (which later changed to G...

When I declared my season was done after the 2019 Singapore Cup final, I realized I amassed a stack of accreditation passes that were essential in order to work behind the scene from the days it was known as the S.League till two years ago when it was rebranded as Singapore Premier League (SPL). My involvement started halfway in 1998 (the third season) when I answered a call and turned up at a meeting in the S.League office at old National Stadium to be part of the crew assembled to help the official league website. Evolution of the passes  The first pass I received was a laminated pass with the necessary details besides the photo which I snapped at one of those instant photo booths, on the bottom of the pass listed the league sponsors of that season like Tiger Beer, Pepsi, NTUC Income, and Singapore Pools. "BUSINESS CARD" PASS FIT IN NICELY The following year saw the pass shrunk into a business card-size made of plastic material by Cardwon from Taiwan and honestly ...

I thought one of the good initiatives of the rebranded Singapore Premier League (SGPL) is to allow fans to buy their match tickets online, which is a laudable move as it is a practice in tandem with many other sporting events held in Singapore. However, I wish to highlight matters pertaining to those tickets, which are now printed on better quality material, bought on match days at the game venues. After a few rounds of matches, it is regrettable tickets purchased over the counter not longer detailed those match information except these words, as shown in the picture below. The "22/7/18" match saw Albirex Niigata (S) clinched the SGPL title No one seems to be able to give an answer when I asked causally why the changes were made. As one may never know these ticket stubs, which were usually discarded by many after games, may be an important testament to something significant that happened during that particular match. I, myself, still have those match ticket stu...

Despite calls from all corners to push the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) to implement the promotion/relegation system between the professional S.League and the amateur National Football League (NFL) in order to inject the much-needed competitiveness among clubs, this blogger is still not in favour of this conventional practice commonly used in most football leagues around the world. Those who bother can refer to this old entry to find out why this blog insisted the promotion/relegation system is not feasible in Singapore football. Added on to the recent embarrassments (source 1 , 2 ) that occurred in recent weeks did little to improve the image of the NFL either. NFL sides would have to tweak their mindset to stay relevant (file picture) It is no secret that some of these NFL clubs harbouring thoughts of becoming part of the S.League one day but are being hamstrung by unfavourable climate of the game all along. Perhaps, it is time to adopt a different ap...

Things aren't actually set in the groove for former Central Singapore District mayor Zainudin Nordin in his attempts to push start his ambitious Asean Super League (ASL) project despite there was  speculation that an "announcement" was supposed to be made last month. Zainudin Nordin (extremely right, file picture) With the latest developments in the region, it cast further skepticism if the pet project of the one-time Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC (Group Representation Constituency) would ever take off. After all, approval from Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the continent's governing body, is mandatory before the ASL can be launched under the condition that the latter is able to fit itself under the competition structure of the former. KEY AMENDMENTS Key amendments to both AFC Cup, the continent's second-tier club competition, and the AFF Championship aka AFF Suzuki Cup, which is soon-to-be-announced , are seen by many...

Lim Chin is thinking of a way to "fit S.League into the ASL system". Even though many are skeptical, they still see it as an opportunity to place the ailing S.League as the priority again after Lions XII's acrimonious exit from the Malaysian league. Unfortunately, it will not be the case when the top man of the league, himself, declared: "If we agree that the ASL (Asean Super League) will be a good platform for us to build a strong national team, then we should all work together to achieve that... We have to find a creative way to transform the S.League into a system to fit into the ASL model," The presser of the recent FAS AGM (credit: FAS) Those words by S.League's CEO Lim Chin at the recently concluded FAS (Football Association of Singapore) AGM shattered those who harboured hopes to see the country's only professional sports league be given the attention it badly needed to unplug itself from life support. But with the game's local ...