Ministry of Comm, Youth & Sports Lessons from the World Cup 2018

I am following the World Cup 2018 with some interest.

Around the year 2000, the prime minister Goh Chok Tong set Goal 2010 - to qualify for the finals of the World Cup 2010.

We did not achieve the goal in spite of great efforts made to promote football. We organized the S League and imported many football "talents".

This goal has since been dropped. I thought that a country with a small population, like Singapore, would not make it.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that three of the teams who qualifed for the world cup have a population smaller than Singapore - Croatia, Serbia and Iceland. Iceland has a population less than 10% of Singapore.

These teams also performed well in the first round of the World Cup. the beat or drew with teams from bigger countries.

To do well in the World Cup does not depend on the size of the country. Although bigger countries have an advantage, the small countries could also perform well through a better system of developing their footballers.

So, it must be something else that cause Singapore to fail in this goal.

It could be some of the following factors:

a) No passion and time for sports - for most of the young people
b) National service disruption for promising players
c) Lack of innovation in identifying and dealing with other problems.
d) Insufficient recognition for sportsmen?

Tan Kin Lian

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