The Workers' Party (WP) Members of Parliament (MP) Jamus Lim and Faisal Manap filed a motion in Parliament on Jul. 6, 2023 to evaluate Singapore's sporting ecosystem.

By the end of the debate, WP voted against the motion after it was amended by a People's Action Party (PAP) motion.

Lim: Government caused poorer sports results

In his opening speech, Lim said he believes that Singapore's sports facilities and sports expenditures were poorly managed, resulting in poor sports results.

"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."

He claimed that while richer countries with more income and resources can achieve sporting success, this was the contrary for Singapore, where sports performance declined.

"And in that regard, Singapore has not only punched way below our weight, but it has actually gotten consistently worse," Lim said.

Lim on Singapore Sports Hub's failings

Lim anchored his speech on the Singapore Sports Hub facility, which he said "failed" as a public-private partnership (PPP).

He said cracks in the facility were already starting to show before Sports Singapore's (SportSG) takeover and gave examples such as the leaking roof during Jay Chou's 2014 concert and the 2016 National Day rehearsals fee fiasco,

He claimed the facility was also in turmoil internally, describing it as going through chief executive officers like "hot potatoes".

Asks how the government will address national sports spending

In light of this, Lim asked the government about its plans for the Singapore Sports Hub and, on a broader scale, how it plans to get more bang for the buck on national sports spending.

Faisal: "Make Singapore Football Great Again"

Fellow WP MP Faisal Manap narrowed in on a sport – football – during the sports motion, lamenting its recent "dismal showings" at the 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia and the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Championships 2022 tournament.

Forget World Cup, go for AFC Cup first

Faisal suggested setting a goal or a vision for Singapore football. He stressed that goals have to be realistic and within reach.

"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."

Instead of aiming for the World Cup in 2034, he suggested an alternative: Aiming to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup in 2036.

On this, Faisal asked the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Football Association of Singapore to clarify whether qualifying for the 2034 World Cup is a realistic or aspirational target, as per the previous public statements, and how they plan to achieve that target.

Suggestions relating to the young and the old

Noting the importance of youth development, Faisal suggested looking into past programmes to identify and rectify what went wrong and to commit towards a long-term youth development programme.

He also called for better support for retiring national football players, such that football remains a viable career for them once they hang up their boots and encourages youth to pursue football as a career.

Review Singapore football as a whole, even if we need to tear down FAS

Lastly, Faisal called for FAS to have an open conversation with relevant stakeholders and for it to review Singapore football as a whole.

"The sporadic and occasional closed door consultations FAS has held is of limited value, and has the risk of creating an echo chamber.

And if it means we need to tear down FAS and rebuild from the ground up, so be it."

PAP MP suggested amendments

PAP MP Darryl David proposed to amend the sports motion.

Here's a marked-up version of the original, with words he proposed to add in bold and strikethroughs for the words he proposed to replace:

"That this house celebrate 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 undertake a continue its thorough evaluation of the areas of improvement in Singapore’s sporting ecosystem, and commit to realising clear, achievable for sporting success our goals in sports over the coming decade."

WP MPs and PSP NCMPs vote against amendments

After the Parliament voted to pass Darryl's amendments, Lim explained WP's decision to vote against the amended motion in his closing speech, saying that Darryl's suggestion to switch "undertake a" with "continue its" suggests that the government has performed "some review."

However, he said WP has not seen "concrete evidence" of a thorough evaluation of the sporting ecosystem and, thus, found it difficult to support the amendments.

Lim also rejected Darryl's suggestion to replace sporting with sports, saying that it does not appropriately nor clearly define success.

... and against the amended motion

Parliament voted in favour of the amended motion, with the WP MPs and the Progress Singapore Party's (PSP) Non-Constituency MPs who were present registering dissent.

Top image screenshot from Ministry of Communications and Information/YouTube