Football
The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) adopted the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme in 2000 but was limited to scouting talent for the Singapore national football team to boost Singaporean football. Its goal is to attract foreign players in Singapore to change nationality and thus play for Singapore. The scheme is described as the second key pillar of the FAS football excellence plans.
Launched in the year 2000, its objective was to complement the FAS Youth Development programme by identifying the playing positions in the national team that were lacking, especially from its youth development output and to fill these gaps with FSTs. The first FSTs were inducted in Jan 2002.
In 2002, the national team welcomed Croatian-born Mirko Grabovac, Brazilian-born Egmar Goncalves and English defender Daniel Bennett to strengthen the national team. The Nigerian-born pair of Agu Casmir and Itimi Dickson received their Singapore citizenship in 2003 and 2004 respectively. The FAS, with the help of the clubs, has identified several other talented U-21 foreign players under this scheme. Their performances are being closely monitored in the S.League.
From 2007, the FAS accepted changes to the scheme which requires new foreign sports talents to play in the S.League for a minimum of two seasons after being granted Singapore citizenship.
When the FAS first launched the FST scheme in 2000, the intention was to offer citizenship to about 2 to 3 foreign players a year. However, due to the stringent selection process and early success to the youth development programme, to-date, only nine foreign-born players have been granted Singapore citizenship. All of them have played in the S.League to contribute to the local football scene and also played for the national team.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Sports Talent Scheme
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)