Sport

Invited Japanese club to the Singapore Premier League, Albirex Niigata from Japan, ended their league season on Saturday by beating Warriors FC 2-1. In the process, they reclaimed the league title they won last year, as well as set a new record of never losing a match in the entire season.

Juts to show what a joke are for the rest of the local teams, Albirex notched 21 times and only drew 3 times in the entire season. They also set a new record for the biggest winning points margin between the champions and the runners up. Albirex ended the season with 66 points, 23 more than runners up Home United. They actually clinched the title way back in July, a full two months before the league came to an end.

And to make the local teams seem even more mediocre, Albirex are still in the running for the treble of winning the league, the Singapore Cup and the League Cup. They did the treble in 2016 and 2017. 

In line with Education Minister Ong Ye Kung's admission that the government are making plans to bring in more foreign talent as locals lack talent, the Football Association of Singapore is also following suit.

FAS announced that they have plans to revive the foreign talent scheme, but said that it is for a long term development, thus the foreign talent brought in must be very young. By the time the young foreign talents have been identified and received his citizenship, he should still be around 23 years of age, with a lot of good football ahead of him to represent Singapore.

While the foreign talent scheme has been a hit and miss in Singapore, this latest admission proves there really is a lack of talented locals who can make it professional players

The F1 weekend had just drawn to a close for the 11th time in Singapore. By all accounts, it was another successful spectacle put up by the organizers, and Singapore stands proud once again as the Jewel of the F1 race. However, reports had also emerged that some Caucasian men had actually profited by re-selling tickets for the event to those who did not have tickets but wanted to watch the race.

Apparently, these scalpers have been seen selling these tickets since Saturday at a shopping centre near City Hall MRT. These men allegedly obtained the tickets by approaching those who had already watched leaving the venue after the first race, and obtained them for free. These tickets are then re-sold for $100 each, which was still cheaper than the actual ticket prices of $108 to $888. 

Event organizers already said that this was illegal, and that they can turn away people with this invalid tickets out at the door. But, how do they check if the ticket had been resold? And what of security measures? Anyone can obtain tickets anyhow and anywhere, as long as they know where to look. 

Once again, Singapore football fans have been given a feeling of being shortchanged. Not for the first time, the rights holder for the Europe Champions League and the Europa League are still locked in discussions with pay TV providers in Singapore. And the games start today, but yet, consumers of SingTel and Starhub are still kept in the dark about whether they will be able to watch from their TV sets or not.

This probably hankers back to the fact that the licencee knows that they can charge exorbitant fees to SingTel or Starhub, because of past dealings with both. So, even if both pay TV provider are licked in discussions to try to get lower cost for broadcasting rights, the licensee will know they hold the upper hand. Based on their past stupidity of bidding very high for the rights to screen matches, now they cannot get the broadcast right for cheap, compared to say Malaysia.

So, who are at a losing end? The consumers, of course. Either consumers have to pay high prices yet again to watch football in the middle of the night, or miss out altogether on watching the bast teams in Europe do battle.  

The South Korea men's football tram have secured themselves an exemption from Military service after they clinched the Gold Medal at the recently concluded Asian Games. The team, which also comprised of Son Heung Min of Tottenham Hotspur, beat Japan 2-1 in the final.

Son took part in these Games, captained South Korea as one of the over-aged players in the under-23 competition, mainly to put himself in a position to win the Gold medal and obtain the exemption, so he could continue his lucrative professional football career in London. All able-bodied South Korean men must complete 21 months' service in the military as a deterrent against the North, but exemptions are offered to athletes who win gold at the Asian Games or a medal of any colour at the Olympics.

This is a slap in the face for Singapore's own Ben Davies. Widely condemned in Parliament by PAP Ministers for allegedly trying to escape serving his NS, even though he only asked for a deferrement, he can now never get the deferrement to allow him to play professional football in London, like Son. Here is a guy whose country is in an actual conflict with the North neighbours, yet he got the exemption. Poor Ben can only curse his luck

North Korea’s 4.25 SC hammered Singapore’s Home United 9-1 in the second leg of the 2018 AFC Cup Inter-Zone Semi-final on Tuesday, to advance to the next round with an 11-1 aggregate score. Yes, that's right. Singapore football sank to a new low as one of the top Singapore Premier League club was walloped 9-1 in the second leg of their AFC Cup inter-zone semi-final tie in Pyongyang on Tuesday. They hd lost 2-0 at JBS last week, so the aggregate score of 11-1 sums up the gulf in class between the two teams.

And just to add insult to injury, The 9-1 loss is believed to be the heaviest knockout-round defeat in the 15-year history of the competition.In 2014, Indonesian side Persipura Jayapura beat Myanmar's Yangon United 9-2 and, in 2009, Vietnam's Binh Duong beat Malaysian side Kedah 8-2, both in last-16 games.