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Why hire a foreign coach?

Letter from Chan Teck Guan

AS I read with interest the report “Under-16

boys meet their master” (April 21), I simply

cannot understand why the Football Association

of Singapore (FAS) has once again

appointed a foreign coach to take charge of

our national youth team.

With all due respect, what has Takuma

Koga won as a youth coach that gives him

an edge over our local coaches?

To support his appointment with the

trophies he won in J-League as a player is

naive.

Adbullah Noor was the assistant coach

of the Youth Olympic Games team last

year, and with Kadir Yahya’s departure, one

would have thought the FAS would appoint

Noor as the new coach.

But to our surprise, the FAS has again

shown its preference for foreigners by appointing

Koga as the new coach — with

Noor as the assistant.

How about local coaches such as V Sundramoorthy

and D Tokijan who were involved

with youth teams in recent years?

Did the FAS even consider Fandi Ahmad for

the post?

FAS president Zainudin Nordin should

be upfront and tell us: Are our local coaches

good enough? If not, why not?

It is ironic that the FAS appointed a foreign

coach for the YOG team, when the FAS

president announced earlier this month

that FAS is working towards having a league

with no foreign teams.

Reform Party wants to contest Ang Mo Kio GRC

Neo Chai Chin

chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

the Reform Party’s contest of West Coast

GRC, its secretary-general, Mr Kenneth

Jeyaretnam, revealed its greater ambitions:

It hopes to send a team to contest the sixmember

Ang Mo Kio GRC helmed by Prime

Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Two of the six potential candidates

for Ang Mo Kio will be “loaned” from the

Singapore People’s Party (SPP): Mr Alex Tan

and Mr Jay Ting. The identities of the remaining

members are still being finalised.

The RP already has one SPP member on

its books, Mr Frankie Low, who will be part

of the its West Coast GRC team.

While SPP told

came about because the RP “needs

the help”, Mr Jeyaretnam reiterated that his

party “have more than enough candidates

to form a second GRC team, or the nucleus

of a GRC team”.

Speaking to reporters during a Telok

Blangah walkabout last night, Mr Jeyaretnam

described the arrangement between

the RP and the SPP as “the culmination of

the process” that began when SPP chief

Chiam See Tong approached him to contest

a GRC together in May 2009.

Should Mr Jeyaratnam decide to lead

the RP’s Ang Mo Kio GRC team, it would

set up an eye-catching contest between

him and the Prime Minister. Apart from

also having a political pedigree, Mr Jeyaretnam

was quick to point out — when he

first came onto the political scene — that

like Mr Lee, he also had double first class

honours.

But Mr Jeyaretnam, who took up the

RP baton following the death of his father

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, stressed that

he was “committed” to West Coast. The

party chose Ang Mo Kio because it is one of

the few GRCs that none of the Opposition

parties had declared an interest in.

“Our main concern is to see every seat

contested. Most of the other GRCs are already

spoken for,” he said.

On whether a RP team would face an

uphill task, given its lack of outreach efforts

in Ang Mo Kio, Mr Jeyaretnam said: “We

want to answer the popular demand that

there should be no more walkovers. So,

that’s our primary motivation.”

The party will begin outreach activities

in the constituency soon, he added.

Spotted at the walkabout yesterday

was Mr Jeyaretnam’s 14-year-old son Jared.

The youngster helped snap pictures of the

candidates on their block visit and deposit

flyers at the doors of residents who were

not at home.

Said Mr Jeyaretnam: “He’s very interested

in politics ... It’s a good learning

experience.“— A day after he announcedToday that the arrangement

Our main concern

is to see every seat

contested. Most of

the other GRCs are

already spoken for.

Reform Party secretary-general

Kenneth Jeyaretnam

Mr Jeyaretnam (centre), his son (in white) and members of the Reform Party during a walkabout

yesterday. Photo by Neo Chai Chin

Our main concern

is to see every seat

contested: Jeyaretnam

I’m my own man: Kuan

Ph oto by Erne st Chua

Ian De Cotta

ian@mediacorp.com.sg

Let’s have a clean fight in Marine Parade: SM Goh

TAN WEI ZHEN and SHAMIR OSMAN

weizhen@mediacorp.com.sg