BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

Not that long ago, I tweet something like this: "Instead of 'sponsor', should we be looking for 'strategic partners' for #sleague and clubs?" And many of those replied said there ain't much different between the two, since both are the so-called financial providers or whatsoever. However, months back while attended the "Soccerex Asia" (pictured above where I met Romario there - see I was behind the legend!!), one of the panellists of one discussion group have this to say (if I remember correctly). "It is about finding the right partner in marketing your product and one can't simply blame everything on English Premiership for the inability for not able to do that." he said. I think the key word here he used was the word "partner" and not merely refer them as "sponsor". Having a brief thought about it from someone who is not trained as a marketing person, I come to this conclusion that to me a "sponsor"

I think many of you read what was written on The Straits Times today, eh? Nothing short of the usual woes we are facing in today's local football - the lack of quality players and standard, the lack of bonding between fans and clubs, the lack of familiarity of the teams and players, etc. So nothing new and this tells us we know what are the problems that we are all talking about here. And I think it's high time we should stop whine about these issues and get down to business to fix it, rather than talk over and over again. Now, do YOU know WHO YOU ARE in WHAT ROLE you are PLAYING? Perhaps, at a start one should log on to my fellow blogger Arief's blog, "Lions All The Way" which recently had he posted a series of entries titled "10 Things YOU Can do to Help Local Football!" as a guide on how you can help. Just to quote a line which caught my attention among the posts. "The day that Singapore football dies, is the day that the fans stop believing i

Introduction The TODAY's exclusive on the 16th of December ( 'S-League needs major surgery' ) seems to have triggered a wide range of discussions on the flaws in local football. A break from the past template of reviewing the events of the past year, I selected a few topics that caught my attention and blogged my thoughts on them instead... Screwed1 Did Home United mess up itself at the end of the day by allowing Shahril Ishak (pictured below) to leave at the most critical juncture of the season? Shahril Ishak's crowning as the "Player of the Year"  While every effort had been made to offer its former skipper a much-improved contract that would have seen the inspiring midfielder being the highest paid at the club, the Protectors were helpless, but to see its prized possession left for Indonesia. The absence of the national midfielder was in evidence as Home United's form took a beating following his departure. And after a few scary moments onl

The 3-0 scoreline of this friendly fixture played on the field at the Meridian Junior College in Pasir Ris shouldn't be raised too much a concern for both visiting Sabah FA (in white jersey) and newly-named Hougang United (in red-black striped outfit). After all, both teams are in the midst of their preparation for their upcoming season, but the only difference is the Malaysians are already several levels ahead of their Singapore counterparts in getting themselves ready. "We started our training session on 1st November and we had undergone some solid training for the past six to seven weeks." said the SabaHawks' Australian coach Gary Phillips after the match. "And I'm pleased with my team performance and would be glad if we can continue to play like this. "But it's still early days ahead with some fine-tuning to be going as this team will be facing a tougher challenge against big teams like Selangor, Kelantan."added the coach who guided the Nort

Today, this blog is featuring a new book - "Planeta do Futebol: do Brasil a fronteira afega"("Football Planet: from Brazil to Afghan" in English, pictured above) written Brazilian football journalist Renato Andreão Renato, as you can remember, was the kind gentleman who conducted my email interview with S.League legend Egmar Goncalves on my behalf, way back in January 2009. In this book, Renato had written 12 pages on Singapore football (pictured above) with transcripts from interviews he conducted with national coach Raddy Avramovic, SAFFC coach Richard Bok and players such as Ahmad Latiff Khamarudin, Noh Alam Shah, as well as input from former players such as S Subramani and ex-Home United coach Steve Darby. Wide range of topics were discussed in the Singapore section with topics such as players' views on the Lions' performance in the international tournaments, such as the Asian Cup qualifiers, the Suzuki Cup and what coach Darby demanded from Egmar in t