Foreign factor

YOU COULD call it local football's version of a 'Meet the People' session.

SUNDAY BEST: Winston Lee's football mind is powered by numerous mugs of coffee. TNP PICTURES: KENNETH KOH

Every Sunday, for the past few years, you can find S-League chief executive officer Winston Lee at the outdoor cafe that overlooks the famous Orchard Road junction with Tangs in the background.

It is where the 45-year-old - one of the most eligible chief executive officers in the sports industry here - spends the entire afternoon, or even the evening.

He catches up on work matters, comes up with ideas, and meets football officials who can't meet him during the work week.

Like Albirex Niigata's vice-chairman Bogdan Brasoveanu on the day The New Paper was there, as he wanted to explore an option to see if Singapore's top players could have a shot to play in Japan under a new rule (see more later in this story).

And yes, Lee's always in his trademark long-sleeved shirt and jeans. He said: 'I'm the most informally dressed CEO around, I think. I love my Sunday sessions alone and I still have the passion for this job. But I tell all the football officials that they can come meet me here every Sunday to share ideas and feedback.'

Lee joined FAS in 1999 to head its marketing department and is now also its general secretary.

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COFFEE, TEA OR MEET?: S-League CEO WInston Lee uses his Sunday coffee break to share football ideas with Albirex vice-chairman Bogdan Brasoveanu.

Do we really need foreign clubs in the S-League? Sporting Afrique, Sinchi, Liaoning and Dalian Shide have all come and gone. Now Brunei DPMM joins Albirex and Super Reds, who are still around. Hasn't the S-League foreign club policy produced more failures than successes?

WINSTON: WHILE some of the foreign teams have not been successes, I say that overall, foreign teams do bring benefits to Singapore football.

Foreign clubs receive less subsidies than what local clubs are entitled to. They also attract new sponsors to the league and have raised the level of competition as in the case of Super Reds when they finished second last year as well as (Brunei's) DPMM, who are currently third in this year's standings.

New fans, especially the expatriate communities of these teams, come watch our league and the brand profile of our S-League is also raised overseas. Our sponsors get additional exposure in other countries.

They are also a potential source for foreign talent for the other clubs and even our national team. Players such as Shi Jia Yi and Qiu Li (both formerly from Sinchi) are now citizens and play for Singapore.

But the bar has to be constantly raised each year for our foreign teams. We won't hesitate to drop underperforming foreign teams like Dalian and Sporting Afrique.

FOREIGN LEGION: Chinese clubs like Sinchi and Dalian underperformed and have since quit the S-League. FILE PICTURE

After watching some of last year's matches, the S-League's local players have improved in standard as compared to previous years. But the foreign players' standards seem to have decreased. How else do you explain that Aleksandar Duric became the S-League Player of the Year in 2007 and last year, even at the age of 37 and 38?

OUR LOCAL players have improved over the years and Duric did very well too in the last few years and he deserved those awards.

Unfortunately, not all foreign players in the league meet our expectations especially since we are competing at the Asian level.

The future generations will be better as we have enhanced our youth development system bringing in the best practices in the world, customising them to Singapore's needs under our new technical director, Slobodan Pavkovic.

With sponsorships, we are now able to initiate Centres of Excellence for Under-8, U-10 and U-12 this year.

Two main factors among other reasons why some of our foreigners are not up to expectations, are our clubs' budget constraints and limited scouting networks.

To assist clubs in recruiting better foreign players, we organised a pilot centralised trial last November, inviting players from France, Italy, Canada, China and Brazil.

It will be an annual process to supplement their own scouting efforts. We believe we will progressively attract more quality foreign players into the league.

Another contributing factor is that our clubs operate on much smaller budgets compared with clubs from the top Asean and Asian countries.

As a comparison, the operating budgets of J-League clubs range up to $100 million annually.

J-League champions Kashima Antlers for instance, whom SAFFC are grouped with in the AFC Champions League, have an operating budget of $51 million, with $24 million spent on the team alone. Our S-League clubs' team budgets, in contrast, range from $600,000 to $1.2 million yearly.

Is there no way of seeing more local clubs return and replace the foreign clubs?

THE PRIORITY will be local clubs and we welcome them whether they are ex-S-League clubs that have sat out so far, or new clubs applying to join our league.

When clubs apply to join our league, whether they are local or foreign, they are assessed thoroughly, based on their technical, financial and management capabilities.

Gombak United are a good example of a club which sat out and then made a return after having strengthened both their business and technical aspects. And that has translated to results on the field. They won the League Cup last year and are currently second in the table after one month of the new season this year.

For the 2010 season, we have already received interest from both local and foreign teams to join our league.

Is the FAS and national coach Raddy Avramovic obliged to retain foreign talent in the national team if they regularly underperform? Especially since the FAS has gone through so much trouble to secure citizenship for them?

WHILE we have put in efforts to secure citizenship for our Foreign Sports Talents, we have invested most of our resources in the development of our local players, with many in the current Lions side having come up through the National Football Academy.

Raddy picks the players entirely on merit. It does not matter whether the player is local or foreign-born. The best 20 or 22 for their positions in the squad get picked. For example, Itimi Dickson has not been selected in recent Lions squads.

Singapore still have a good chance in the Asian Cup Qualifiers. What do the Lions have to do to successfully reach this level?

WITH the top two from each group going through, we have a realistic chance to qualify for the Asian Cup Finals for the first time.

We must play to our potential and display strong fighting spirit and teamwork according to the game-plan similar to the last game against Jordan (which the Lions won 2-1 in January).

The experience gained when we reached the third round of the World Cup Qualifiers for the first time last year, has also made our boys more battle-hardened, confident and aware of their abilities.

Qualifying for the 2011 Asian Cup Finals is an important target for us and more importantly, we want to be competitive at this level.

To compete at the Asian level, we must continue to be innovative and disciplined in our approach and optimise our limited resources. We have to keep enhancing our youth development programmes, increase participation at grassroots levels, improve training facilities, raise the standards of coaching and secure more sports science and medical support.

We'll need regular exposure to a higher level of international football too.

To do this, we have to increase our resources.

The New Paper understands that the FAS' annual budget of $9m lags far behind Japan Football Association's budget of close to $200m.

Already, J-League champions Kashima Antlers have an annual operating budget of $51m, as compared to an S-League club's budget of $600,000 to $1.2m.

Even a top Asean nation, like Indonesia, can have an annual budget of up to $90m.