@PAP Forever, here is my other post which will probably be forgotten by the time it’s approved (newer responses edited in*): “it’s a fact. look at the opposition calibre and what sort of ppl follow chiam or kj around. what do you call ppl who can’t get along with five other ppl? well that’s the opposition. losers, mostly.”

You say you don’t make personal attacks, yet your posts are filled with accusations that others have a brain of a baboon, are a loser, are stupid, are a joke, that things are crappy in other countries, or that other places are going to die. You seem to have lived in the US or Europe, but are quite familiar with the UK, and cite London’s prices, yet London is not the UK and the UK is not Europe.*

You did not address my response, that it is the PAP’s measures to keep themselves in power that had created this political landscape, where only the “losers” are left to follow the opposition parties and the “talents” would rather stay in the private sector because they can’t earn as much money helping to run their own country so it’s better to literally mind their own business and ignore the state of the nation.

“now, you buy a flat in ghim moh for $30,000 some 30 years ago. today the same flat is $350,000. you sell the flat. you get $320,000… you move to a less prime area. and with this money YOU FULLY PAY UP YOUR FLAT. IT’S 100% yours.”

Except that it’s not really the case. 4-room flats in Ghim Moh should sell for about $445,000 (4I) or between $600,000 and $698,000 (4A) according to these transaction records. Looks good, right? So the profits look like it’s enough to buy this 5I flat for $525,000. Except in terms of floor space, the 5I flat would actually be a downgrade of a few square metres from the 4A flat, and the returns from the sale of the 4I flat would leave you $80,000 short (525 – 445 = 80). And you would have spent a total of $555,000 (525 + 30 for your original flat.) No big deal, take an $80,000 loan, work it off, you say.Except if you were already able to afford a $30,000 flat in, say, 1980, at the age of 25, you would be somewhere around 57 now. How much time do you have left to work off that $80,000 loan? Never mind, let the children pay for the upgrade… after all, they’re enjoying the new flat too.

So the house is “purchased” on a 99-year lease. Why do I insist it’s not a purchase? Have you tried breaking the walls of “your” HDB flat? Removing a pillar to expand the size of the room? Relocating the balcony from one side of the flat to another? All this you can do in other land-rich countries if you buy your home, but not for a HDB in Singapore, because it’s rented. People who rent in other countries aren’t allowed to do this either, it doesn’t matter how much land space they have, the landlord makes the decisions. The only difference is, here the landlord is a stat board and elsewhere the landlord is a person.

“…even if you moved to say jurong west extension, the infrastructure there is still better than when you bought the flat at ghim moh 30 years ago.”

Yes, of course, thanks to Singapore’s progress. That’s why the prices rise. It’s normal. Would you still be here if we had retained kampongs?

“and yes, if you live in a 4 rm or 5 rm in ghim moh, you 100% can get a new flat elsewhere. but this is a diff point right? you are now asking if you can get ANOTHER flat. my friend, you already got a flat. does the taxi driver overseas own a flat to begin with? DREAM ON.”

No, you start with your parents’ flat and if and when you’ve finally worked enough you move out. In either case, as pointed out above, you merely rent the flat, you don’t own it. At some point after having driven enough passengers, the taxi driver overseas can actually OWN his home…

“if you buy a new flat now, you get close to $200,000 off (less market rate + grant + low loan interest rates). tell me which country gives its citizens this kind of money to start a family? DREAM ON.”

Let’s assume the loan money doesn’t need to be paid back later on* and take $200,000 off a new 4-room flat’s price, say in Bt. Batok. I happen to like the place because I grew up there. Also, it is supposed to have the greatest number of flats available, so I have a higher chance of getting a flat there. Bear with me when I take existing flat prices as an estimate, it won’t be accurate but in the absence of other figures it’s the best I have. This 4A flat closest to where the new BTOs will pop up is valued at $460,000. Assuming it sells for exactly the valued price, and $200,000 is “given” by the government, a new homeowner would have to pay $260,000 for a ~105sqm flat. At current rates, this would be €158,000. Give or take a few. Let’s see what we can find in Germany: maybe a 108sqm 3-room apartment in Berlin for €122,000, 50m from the nearest bus stop. Or a 122sqm 4-room apartment for €142,000 a few streets away, 150m to the nearest subway station. Maybe the reason why the government is “giving so much money” because they have to make the flats look affordable in the first place? These prices are full prices, before loans are calculated. There are also conservancy charges but they are charged on a per-sqm basis and aren’t subsidised.*

“now if ppl sit on a pot of gold and don’t want to sell?”

Why should I sell my flat which is fully paid for, to move away from people I’ve been seeing for 30 years, places where my children have grown up, food that I’ve been eating for so long, just because property values have risen? It’s not like every flat is just an investment. Money is not the answer to everything.

“you think the taxi drivers live in prime locations overseas? hahahahaha”

They don’t, but they pay a lot less for their non-prime locations than we would have to for ours. Of course, that’s due to our land scarcity, but the point is that they can afford it.

“scenario 1: if you get below abb but can still go local uni. no scholarship. no prob, can get loan. pay back later. if hardcore poor, can get bursary. if malay, no prob, ask mendaki.”

A loan is something you’ll have to repay later, right? Adding on to the housing loan and the $260,000 we discussed above. Not everyone will want to take on this burden.*

“scenario 2: if you didn’t do well enough to get into a local uni, govt’s fault? maybe you’re stupid? …not everyone can go uni right? but you can still go overseas for 1 yr or go sim or whatever, still possible to get degree. but remember, you not very bright, so no more subsidy for you. it’s fair.”

Yes, but these “no-subsidy”, “poly level”, “not very bright” Singaporeans are still the majority. Only 44.1% of Singaporeans between 25 and 39 as of 2010 had university degrees, which means 55.9% of the younger part of the workforce at this time are “poly level” or lower. So they’ll have to make do with 2-room or 3-room flats costing around $100,000 after a $200,000 loan. Which, as you say, is at least a roof over your head. No argument there, it’s still possible to live a good life within your means, right?

“let me give you an eg. of dimwit. THEY KEEP COMPARING WITH EUROPE WHEN THE EUROPE IS GOING TO DIEEEE. see what i mean? they don’t realise they got it gd. they don’t realise they literally don’t pay any tax. they wanna be like europe which is dying. this is the kind of opposition crap you hear.”

Judging from the list of tax rates around the world on Wikipedia, we do have it good. “they moan and groan our ministers so exp and say the euro one cheap. but euro is going bankrupt???” Europe is not going bankrupt, some European countries are. Some individual economies are still going fine, like Germany, France, and Sweden.

“so now we return to the topic. is it because of fear? no. it’s because this is a great country and there aren’t many things to get excited about…”

Maybe you’re right, but at some point some people have got to be looking for more than just a roof over their head and some food in their stomach. We can always rely on the “authorities concerned” to govern correctly, except when they don’t. So we need more people in politics, more different voices, to make sure the Parliament is not full of echoes, and that Singapore is run for its people, not for its shareholders.

Also, to your other response: “oh yeah it’s the education system that’s at fault ah. might it have something to do with say, OUR POPULATION SIZE? are you aware that our students beat their students in math and science?” I sincerely don’t think population size is a factor. The education system as it is now is meant to produce workers, not entrepreneurs. Everyone’s favourite Sim Wong Hoo didn’t have to go to university to make it big. So did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who both left university. That doesn’t mean they were “stupid”, they knew what they were doing.

Watch Ken Robinson’s TED talk in 2006 about creativity and schools…

I am one of those critics. Not having watched Malaysian football recently, I can hardly comment justifiably on the quality of the teams in the competition, but I sincerely doubt the supporters of this experiment, Hazrul himself of course included, have watched enough Malaysian football to know it is worth our time to compete there. I think, on the other hand, we are suffering from “the Singapore Malaysia Cup Overconnect Syndrome”. Let me explain.

I am also Singaporean, and I have lived through the tail end of the Malaysia Cup days. I want to see my team succeed, of course, by which I mean any Singaporeans competing anywhere, but I object to this entire experiment because of the mind-blowing amount of effort put into publicity which was sorely missing from Singapore football in the past 15 years or so. It’s a tacit admission that Singapore football is only at home when it is competing against Malaysian club sides.

On the basis of history and improved match quality, Hazrul argues that a return to Malaysian competitions – especially in the form of a mutual agreement like the one here – can only bode well for Singapore football and that the arrogance involved in constructing a professional league led to a poorly-conceived effort.

Singapore and Malaysia, he argues, shared a colonial history and as one of the Straits Settlements we were on par with the other states of then-Malaya. Returning to the oldest football tournament in Asia, the Malaysia Cup, Hazrul claims, makes sense because it was a bond and a rivalry that we shared with other Malaysian states. I quote: “The Malaysia Cup was conceived during a time when Singapore was never seen as another country, and our opponents were a state of the Malayan peninsula, who share the same struggles of colonialism as us.” While it is an undeniable historical fact that when Singapore used to be one of the territories under British colonial rule, I would like to point out that the Malaysia Cup and Malaysia League made sense then, because our state FA, if you can call it then, was on par with other state FAs in organising a team for these competitions. But not now.

Now, as the Football Association of an independent Singapore, surely the national FA should have other aims with higher priority than to return to a competition against other state teams, such as the nurturing of its own professional footballers. Other than youth development schemes, and helping the successful youth footballers make the transition to the national team level, neither of which has been stunningly successful, but will not be the subject here, I believe maintaining our own league would allow Singaporeans more exposure to what professional football is like, since it would showcase dozens of squads of professional Singaporean footballers to the public and allow them to follow the clubs’ successes and failures, than focusing all the attention on one solitary squad of professional footballers representing Singapore. I contend that building and maintaining a professional league in such a small nation is not a mark of arrogance but a bold step made in the direction of footballing independence.

“One must understand,” Hazrul points out, “that Malaysian state football associations are not clubs.” Fair point, since they do, as he continues, “administer football at the state level, many times bigger than the size of Singapore.” It would be impossible to disagree with that, since they do manage larger populations than Singapore’s. But why should we rehash this population fallacy? Does Jamaica get outperformed by the US in track and field? Does the Netherlands crumble in the face of mighty India at the football World Cup because of sheer population numbers? Managing a bigger group of people just means you have responsibility on a larger scale, but it does not put you at the “same status as the Football Association of Singapore” because you’re comparing a state FA with a national FA. This is absurd. I wager Hazrul would not claim that the Football Association of Malaysia “has the same status” as the FA in Kelantan, for instance, since clearly one is in charge of football development on the state level and the other is responsible nationwide. If one agrees that the FAM is one step up from a state FA, it would be impossible to state (sorry.) that the FAS is on par with the FAM unless you disagree with the zeroth law of thermodynamics. FAS = FAM and FAS = Kelantan FA but FAM > Kelantan FA?

And hang on a moment. If the state FAs are not on the same level as clubs, why are they in a competition against club sides like PKNS, Felda United, Johor FC and T-Team? And what is Johor FC doing one division above Johor FA, or Pahang FA and Perlis FA, who have again club opponents such as Pos Malaysia FC and USM FC? Let me suggest something that might clear up some confusion. While FAs of different levels have to oversee football competitions and development on their respective terms, the teams that they are sending to these competitions are club teams on par with privately-run clubs. This makes T-Team competing against Terengganu FA a local club derby, not a job interview for footballers in the clubs trying to make it to the prestigious FA sides.

“To imply that a country, the size of Singapore should not play in a league against teams in a state, many times our size would be arrogant and ignorant of the long history Singapore has had in the Malaysian competitions,” writes Hazrul. I could not disagree more. The Malaysians have moved on, and brought top club teams into their league formerly reserved for FA-representative sides. Now clubs and state FAs compete on the same level, subordinate to the national team, and Hazrul wants us to accept that we return to that status? This would be grounds enough to suggest that Singapore has not moved on, and Malaysia is merely exploiting our nostalgia to improve themselves.

He even goes on to point out that “This is why we’ve maintained friendly, competitive ties…” and cites competitions like the Sultan of Selangor Cup and the Royal Malay Cup as proof. So it is not enough, to him, to compete in commemorative events once a year, and Singapore should return to participating full-time in Malaysian competitions? I don’t see how staying out of the Malaysian Super League would be a sign of arrogance and ignorance of history on our part.

I myself miss the days of the “nostalgic, historical tournament (his words)” I grew up watching. As I recall the exploits of Singapore’s chosen XI, which included a Czech, a South Korean, an Englishman, an Australian at various times, I remember also the masses which packed Kallang Stadium to watch Fandi, Malek, Steven and Tong Hai don Singapore colours and represent our hopes and dreams against the “evil visitors from up North (mine)”. But those days are over, and we have moved on from a “semi-professional Premier League” and “kampong football” to our very own professional S.League, young as it is. I don’t believe that spending more time, money and effort on the S.League instead of embarking on this experiment would be “akin to denying Singapore’s deep roots and history with Malaysia” as Hazrul suggests.

Of course, he points out, the experiment is a bilateral one which would benefit both countries, since the Harimau Muda – the Malaysian youth team – would be competing in the “S-League” and is sure to pull in interested fans from across the Causeway. He finds it puzzling that critics claim the local league is being ignored when the FAS has increased the number of teams playing in the “S-League” and “included two neighbouring teams which are proven quality”. On the other hand, I don’t find it puzzling at all.

Compare the amount of effort put in by the FAS to promote 4 seasons of Malaysian football, the clamouring of the media to cover this initiative and the amount of column space and public attention the LionsXII have received even before the official kickoff of the first season today – thanks to @LigaSingapura I know they are currently drawing 1-1 with Kelantan FA – with the amount of attention the entire S.League has received in the past 4 seasons in all media, online or otherwise. If you search hard enough and are generous enough, you might even find that both have received the same amount of attention over the past 4 years. Except one is a 8-12 team competition that has been around since 1996 and was ranked among the top 10 in Asia at some point during the last 4 seasons and the other is a single team fulfilling part of the MOU that was signed between two FAs in July 2011. Is the criticism that the local league is being ignored justified now, Hazrul? Also, the fact that the rebranding from “S-League” to “S.League” has gone either unnoticed or unacknowledged by Hazrul is a telling sign that clearly, not enough attention is being paid to the local league.

In terms of quality, Hazrul contends that the Singapore team was kept together for many seasons and played high-impact matches regularly. “This was what gave the Singapore team match fitness when it participated in international tournaments.”

Yet if you look at the major achievements in Singapore football on the international stage, all that time spent playing the high-impact as a cohesive unit didn’t bring any regional success. The best we did at the SEA Games was silver in 1983, 1985 and 1989, with Fandi playing a key role in the team’s success. Yet during those years, Fandi wasn’t playing with the Singapore FA side in the Malaysian tournaments – he was off playing against the likes of Inter with FC Groningen in the UEFA Cup, then for Kuala Lumpur FA against Singapore FA from 1986 to 1989. Our best national player was overseas, but there was enough cohesion to bring us to 2nd place in a regional competition. Our national team earned bronze medals in 1993, when our FA team was trying to get promotion back to Division One of the FAM’s then semi-professional league, and in 1995 after we were thrown out of the Malaysia League and Cup but the FAS decided to field the national team in the now-defunct FAS Premier League for match practice. So the match-fitness argument does hold water, but our performances on the international stage have been largely independent from our form in Malaysian competitions.

Also, our three Tiger Cup / AFF Suzuki Cup triumphs in 1998, 2004 and 2007 were won with the S.League in place, and players – naturalised or otherwise – played against one another in the domestic league until it was time to prepare for the tournaments. Clearly, while playing as a team together in a league works, it has not been even correlated with our international performances, let alone shown to be a cause for success on the global stage.

So what will the return to the Malaysian competitions of the LionsXII, featuring many players from the Courts Young Lions, some taken from their parent clubs “on loan” for the SEA Games last year and never returned, do for the national team? It can’t be proven that they will be a contributing factor to our success, but they have caused some disruption to the club sides in the S.League.

The clubs have not all gone belly-up, however, because they have foreign imports and an abundance of professional local-born talent like K. Vikraman for Balestier Khalsa, Shamil Sharif and Patrick Paran for Tanjong Pagar United, Shukor Zailan and Ahmad Latiff for Tampines Rovers, Erwan Gunawan and Mustaqim Manzur for SAFFC, Sobrie Mazelan for Hougang United, Firdaus Idros for Home United, and the list goes on.

It is these clubs that continue to feed players to the national team, these clubs that continue to participate in top-level regional competitions like the AFC Cup, and these clubs that will be the future of Singapore football. The Malaysians bring the pedigreed Harimau Muda A, core of their AFF Cup-winning team, over to compete in an S.League which has no relegation, hoping to give their young talent more exposure and more match training to keep them competitive. Smart move.

What do we do? We invent the LionsXII to bring over into an established professional league, ask for a no-relegation clause and a sizably larger squad to overcome the difficulties presented to us by National Service – which, by the way, also plagued the Singapore national team’s World Cup campaign – to remain competitive against state FA teams and club sides, and the Malaysian FA agrees. Fair deal? What convinced them to accept so many concessions against their own club/state sides? I leave the question open.

While I continue to support the Singaporeans in our latest adventure, I cannot help but wonder if this return to Malaysian football, rather than the formation of the S.League, is the poorly-conceived decision Hazrul Azhar Jamari should be talking about, instead of trying to suggest that said return would bring about Singapore’s return to the World Cup by creating a “mutually beneficial bilateral relationship.”

Here’s my response on that thread, which through some late night e-diarrhoea became a full blog post’s worth of content…

‎@Muhd Khalis Rifhan you’re right… the passion is good news for Singapore football. Thanks for sticking with the S.League and going down for the LionsXII too.

But I feel LATW’s message is justified, even though I’m not part of them. I have to watch our matches via online streaming, and I think the LATW crew are doing a great job keeping the noise levels up in stadiums. Before they got together it was the usual songs and chants, and I tell you, for the past few years even in the Tiger Cup it was always the same few people singing, even the ‘die hard fans’ also a bit like punctured tire… sounded like 1 cheerleader.

@Rohaizat Talib: it’s good that you remember the Malaysia Cup days… I also miss paying $2 for a cup of coke behind the corner flag. But those days are gone. As are the fans from that era. I’ve seen it, painful to watch empty Kallang stands: friendlies against UAE, North Korea, draws in 2007 against Laos and Vietnam in the Tiger Cup group stages, but full house in ‘prestige’ friendlies like Liverpool, Brazil or Australia. And more cheering for Harry Kewell than Rezal Hassan in our very own Kallang Stadium. Why?

Sure, there was support against Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, but only during the knockout stages. Are our Lions only worth supporting when losing will knock them out of a tournament? Or have we grown so complacent that we expect to be in the knockout stages all the time, so we don’t have to waste time with the group matches?

Maybe the inclusion of foreign-born Singaporeans means we couldn’t identify as closely with the national team, and you might have a point there. But Agu, Itimi and Duric – even Egmar – aren’t to blame for playing in Singapore shirts. It’s FAS who hired them there (correct me if I’m wrong.) so their decision to turn up at all means they want, for at least a while, to be part of Singapore’s football destiny. Besides, we never really complained about Jang Jung, Alistair Edwards, Michael Vana, Abbas Saad turning up in red for Singapore in the 90s right?

Even in the recent World Cup Qualifiers we couldn’t always fill the Jalan Besar Stadium. How to talk about the Kallang days? One can’t knock the LATW crew for bringing life back to the stands, and singing at full volume even when we were down 4-0 and playing like crap against China. They are there through thick and thin, which is what football fans should do, regardless of whether they are imitating some songs from BPL clubs or imitating songs from S.League clubs.

If they are to be faulted, it may be for being a little too zealous in keeping the LionsXII separate from the national team, but at least they are there for the real Lions. I would urge the LATW crew to turn up for the LionsXII as well as the National Team… I know at least one of them is going to, just not in his guise as ‘LATWer’. Right Mervin UtdforUtd Tan? So it’s not like they have no semangat, it’s just that they recognise LionsXII for what it is – a club side. Of which the S.League has 10, not counting Etoile, Albirex, DPMM and Harimau Muda.

Back in the M-League days we didn’t have our own S.League to support, the Premier League was well-established but there was no competition with the Lions who played in FAM competitions back then because the Lions united the nation. This return to the MSL will probably have the same uniting effect, and the media is putting its whole weight behind this venture, but does that mean the S.League is to be relegated back to Premier League status? What is to become of the S.League that brought us to AFC competitions and was (for better or worse) one of the top 10 leagues in Asia for a while?

In the midst of all this hoopla over our “long-awaited” return to an FAM competition, let’s not forget that we have spent time and money trying to get our own professional competition up and running. And it’s S.League teams that brought the likes of Mohun Bagan, Arbil FC, Henan Jianye, Shanghai Shenhua and Suwon Samsung to our shores, so they deserve their fair share of credit, I think.

Sure, @Bobby Cheong brings up a good point that the older generation will be brought back to the stands, but my question to you – my own father included – is why did you guys leave the S.League behind? Standard not good enough? Can’t be right, our Lions frankly aren’t that much better. It’s never been about standard.

Basil Yeo while you do have a point, it’s kind of unfortunate that you chose to make it with a Milan jersey on in your profile pic. I’m not saying you left local football in the lurch or that it’s illegal to support overseas teams but it just seems a bit self-contradictory to call out the glory-hunters right?

I’m hoping the LionsXII do well in the MSL, but not at the expense of the S.League – already, captain Shahril Ishak isn’t setting a good example. Why? He mentioned in 2010 after his last match at Tampines Stadium that if he were to return to Singapore football (did he say S.League? I need to check) his first choice would be to return to Home United. Instead he has gone to the MSL for reasons only he knows and I shall not speculate here.

I will be happy if some LionsXII players could get signed by S.League clubs instead of transfers being only one way. Unfortunately I don’t think that would be likely, though I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

I still think this Malaysian experiment should be kept short-term and while I do not wish for it to fail, I would like the S.League to benefit eventually from the LionsXII as well, because a home-grown professional league is, I feel, the long-term answer to improving local football.

Didn’t the likes of Quah Kim Song and Fandi Ahmad (sorry defenders, but strikers are more glamourous) play in local sides before they were picked for the national team? Wouldn’t putting more effort in developing local clubs give better chances of finding another star of that calibre than fielding a club team in another country’s competition?

This is why I think LATW has a point, and shouldn’t be disregarded or belittled. They are reminding us who we should be behind. Singapore.

Because if we don’t support Singapore, which other country will?

Why is it interesting? As part of the Singapore Students Association in Germany (SSAG), an organisation which very much puts Singaporeans first, I have had first-hand contact with the representatives of Contact Singapore (Europe) and I have to say that without their continued support over the past few years we would not have been able to conduct our activities at the scale which we are accustomed to.

Mind you, we’re not some monstrous organisation. SSAG supports as many registered Singapore students across the whole Germany (…Switzerland, and some say even Austria!) as there are in a single batch of a single Engineering course at a single UK university. Which is to say, less than 200. And this includes PhD candidates, Masters’ students like myself, Bachelors’ students and even people on exchange or internship programmes.

That Contact Singapore is supporting our activities does not mean, of course, that we are obliged to stand up and defend them, but I feel everyone deserves a fair trial. Take a look at their wiki page to find out more about what it is they do.

The author/editorial team behind this TR(E) article chose to remain nameless, and pointed out that the ‘targeted’ country being Australia means Australians and Singapore PRs have been given equal footing as Singaporeans. Here’s a quote from the article:

Now, if the fair is overwhelmed by foreign “young talents”, do Singaporeans even have a chance to clinch any interviews? Certainly, we do not see any “Singaporeans first” priority given to Singaporeans here.

The main premise is that they “do not see” Singaporeans being given priority here, and that is because the fair might be “overwhelmed” by “foreign ‘young talents’” which prevent the Singaporeans from “even having a chance” to clinch any interviews.

This assumes, of course, that Singapore is indeed attractive enough for said “foreign ‘young talents’” to want to work in, that the fair will be visited by far more of such people than by Singaporeans studying in Australia, and there is no way for our own local talent to compete with said “foreign ‘young talents’.”

Troubling on several counts. For one, I am sure we have talent to match whatever the Australians can provide, or for that matter, any other countries where Contact Singapore holds such activities. At least on paper we have a highly-skilled workforce – if there is any hiring bias in favour of foreign talent over local talent, it lies with the companies’ HR departments or is a sign of a deficit in the much-vaunted Singaporean education system and has nothing to do with the government “not putting Singaporeans first.” Question the HR departments, question the schools, or ask the Singaporeans why we are not being hired and “foreign talents” are preferred. Why this should be used to criticise the government?

Furthermore, the ad was targeted at ‘young talent’. While it is a reasonable assumption to make that a higher proportion of these will hail from Australia than Singapore, especially since this mail was distributed to Australian fresh graduates according to “STOMPer J.Lee who is currently studying in Australia“, the fair is to be held from 7 to 14 January 2012 at Suntec City Convention Centre, which as I recall is in Singapore. Here is my personal opinion: if the “foreign ‘young talent’” from other countries are willing to fly over to Singapore for a few days, to attend a career fair just to get to meet prospective employers, just to get a chance to be employed in Singapore, let them. In fact they deserve all the support they can get for being so proactive in their job search and responding to the opportunity provided. Would a Singaporean do the same to find work in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia or elsewhere, while treating Singapore as their ‘true home’?

And finally, if Singapore is attractive enough for these talents to want to cross over, why is it not good enough for Singaporeans to want to work, and why are so many Singaporeans choosing to find migrate overseas? Are we too choosy? Or are we just more affected by the long-term realities than “foreign talent” because they can choose not to be invested long-term in Singapore’s future, treating this merely as a place to, uh, SAF? If the latter is true, then why are we giving them so many benefits when they are not as committed to Singapore’s future as we are? This is the real question that needs to be asked.

I have traditionally closed one eye to TR(E) as it is home to some rather radical posters who seem to want to lob verbal abuse and ridicule at anything establishment and enjoy the full benefits of online anonymity without the willingness to stand behind what they say. This constant reference to the 60.1%, PAPigs and so on is getting boring. If you want to say something online, keep it balanced and be honest, and be accountable for it. I use a moniker, but I don’t hide behind it. It’s just easier to build an identity using one word than three.

Below is the reproduction of my Facebook comment in reply to the article.

If there is a faction who considers this move does little more than benefit Malaysian football, count me in. I’m aware of the constant complaints of Singaporeans that the “Malaysia Cup days” had much more emotion and impact, I was there towards the end, but I don’t consider going BACK to a similar setup as moving FORWARD for Singapore football. If anything, it’s more beneficial to Malaysia.

The Harimau Muda, already composed of players who have international experience at age-group level, spent 8 months in Slovakia at a training camp after winning the Malaysian Premier League in 2009. They will get more overseas exposure this time closer to home in an S.League that once counted itself among the top ten in Asia, against teams like Tampines Rovers and SAFFC who have international experience at club level.

Our LionsXII, a team cobbled together from the ruins of the Young Lions, will be going up north to compete in the Malaysian Super League – won by 6 different teams since its inception in 2004. In theory, this looks like a more competitive league, and it probably is, but removing the risk of relegation reduces the MSL to a longer version of the S.League. I won’t say anything about the calibre of the opposition because I haven’t been watching, so I can’t judge.

One benefit I can see for LionsXII? They will have to face larger crowds and travel farther on away days, which will probably help build character on the players’ part. But what message are we sending them? “It’s OK to lose, you can avoid the consequences.” How much softer do Singaporeans need to be? FAM Vice-President Hamidin says the LionsXII have enough problems with National Service and World Cup qualifiers, so they should have a bigger squad and no relegation – did this help them in the S.League? Not very much. I doubt it will help them in the MSL.

The Harimau Muda have gained a lot from the FAM’s willingness to chop and change to accommodate their footballing development – no foreigners, yes foreigners, splitting into two, training in Slovakia, playing in the Premier League, playing in the U-19 tournaments in China – but what has the FAS done for our Young Lions?

Bring foreign-born players in for the Young Lions in 2010. Send them to SEA Games in 2011 with a different coach from the one who’s coached them all season in the S.League, albeit including the original coach as one of the ‘team officials’. Who knows what role he played then?

It is just my speculation, but maybe the reason why Stuart Ramalingam, MSL chief executive, wants Singapore to be a “permanent fixture” is the same as why “60 per cent” of the old energy would be enough for FAM Vice-President Hamidin. Gate receipts. Maybe that’s why the other Malaysian teams can swallow the fact that Singapore’s LionsXII will be exempt from relegation. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time this was an issue.

I’m using Debian Squeeze (6.0) with irssi 0.8.15.

After asking on #freenode how I could do this, I was told “SSL/SASL authentication”, and a Google search yielded Aaron Toponce’s useful howto for irssi, my client of choice. Of course, with Linux, mileage always varies since everyone’s setup (or in my case, attention span) is decidedly unique. So I started off trying the first command, which worked:

/server add -auto -ssl -network freenode_ssl irc.freenode.net 7070

which in turn required that I download the gandi.net certificate (in DER format). The conversion from DER to PEM worked smoothly, again as mentioned on the howto. Root or superuser permissions required for writing into the /usr/ tree:

cd /usr/share/ca-certificates
mkdir gandi.net
cd gandi.net
wget http://crt.gandi.net/GandiStandardSSLCA.crt
openssl x509 -inform der -outform pem < /usr/share/ca-certificates/gandi.net/GandiStandardSSLCA.crt > GandiStandardSSLCA.pem
ln -s /usr/share/ca-certificates/gandi.net/GandiStandardSSLCA.pm /etc/ssl/certs/GandiStandardSSLCA.pem

As he’d mentioned, the first attempt at authentication failed. So I decided to skip ahead and grab the list of certs, which apparently can be found in Debian repositories as ca-certificates, i.e. a simple apt-get would suffice. His link to https://irc.freenode.net:7070 no longer allows a certificate download, though, so I tried:

apt-get install ca-certificates

…and I found of course that it was already installed. Whee. Accordingly, I removed the previous definition for freenode in my .irssi/config and ran this line:

/server add -auto -ssl -ssl_verify -ssl_capath /etc/ssl/certs -network freenode irc.freenode.net 6697

which settled the first step: SSL was set up.

Next, on to SASL: this was really the part that I wanted, the automated auth to Nickserv without putting your password in plaintext in some file. SSL wasn’t necessary, but why not secure your connection while you’re at it right?

Aaron’s pointer to a Perl script worked, but maybe Chromium mucked it up and gave me cap-sasl.download instead, which meant a rename was needed. Not much trouble, but maybe this might be better (I added steps to create the necessary directories first, since I didn’t have them):

mkdir ~/.irssi/scripts
mkdir ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun && cd ~/.irssi/scripts
wget http://freenode.net/sasl/cap_sasl.pl -O cap_sasl.pl
ln -s cap_sasl.pl autorun/cap_sasl.pl

Linking it allows you to remove it from autorun should you decide SASL is no longer your thing, and to add it back later if you change your mind. So anyhow, it’s time to finish up. Run irssi – oh wait, some libraries are missing. At this point it might have been better to follow his advice (sort of) and apt-get install my way to victory:

apt-get install libcrypt-blowfish-perl libcrypt-dh-perl libcrypt-openssl-bignum-perl

But having heard of CPAN I decided to use that instead. You have to be root to install the libraries, so as root, run cpan and in the interactive prompt:

get Crypt::Blowfish Crypt::OpenSSL::Bignum Crypt::DH
install Crypt::OpenSSL::Bignum Crypt::Blowfish Crypt::DH

which incidentally I only thought of combining onto one line while writing this today, three days after the fact

Remember to log out of root when you don’t need to install stuff into /usr any more, and then run irssi and issue the following commands. The first was added for good measure, but really is redundant since cap_sasl.pl should be run automatically.

/run cap_sasl.pl
/sasl set freenode_ssl <primary_nick> <password> DH-BLOWFISH
/sasl save
/save

And you’re set! Running irssi will automatically authenticate you to freenode.

Currently, Singapore sits at the bottom of the table with 1 goal scored and 7 conceded. Their next opponents, Jordan, are at the other end with a 100% record, having scored 7 and conceded only 1.

Although Singapore opened their third stage campaign with a 2-1 defeat in Kunming against China, the Lions had all to play for. Buoyed by the anger at poor refereeing decisions and the goal notched in a hostile atmosphere, Singapore should have capitalised on strong home support to pick up points in Jalan Besar.

Perhaps tellingly, local sports website Redsports’ reports on the matches had only one comment. It was as if the Singaporean fans had been trained to take defeat for granted, an attitude that at least the players on the pitch did not reflect with their gritty displays at home.

The story of the second match, though, was similar: Singapore starting promisingly but conceding goals due to lapses in concentration. There was even controversy over penalty calls, just as it had been in China. The artificial pitch, which Iraq coach Zico had complained about, helped Iraq to their second goal.

A 2-0 friendly win at home against the Philippines between fixtures did little to boost confidence, especially when the vocal minority of Pinoy fans took over the Jalan Besar Stadium and Singapore effectively lost some of its home advantage.

At least the return of Hariss Harun from national service (another topic for another time) to bolster the midfield and the defensive strength of Safuwan Baharudin, who almost single-handedly kept the scoreline respectable against Iraq (thanks Yizhe from Redsports), gave the Lions something to look forward to.

Iraq coach Zico pointed out that Singapore should not afford their opponents too much space in midfield, advice which the Lions took to heart, but while the Lions took the game to their visitors, their finishing was again just not up to par, and giving the Jordanians too much space at the crucial moments allowed them to fly home with a flattering 3-0 win. (Sure, Shahril Ishak was unjustly denied a consolation goal on 77 minutes, but blaming the officials should not become the national sport.)

Singapore reversing the result on Thursday to beat Jordan 3-0 would be too much to hope for. More realistic would be a narrow hard-fought victory to bring the glimmer of hope back into the Singaporean fans’ and footballers’ eyes, especially since the Lions have been all but written off at this stage.

If Iraq take three points against China they will almost certainly have qualified, but will also keep the door open for a Singapore miracle.

However, the onus is on the Lions to play their hearts out for a result in Amman. They should do better without the crushing masses of apathy at home, something which the LATWcrew are working very hard to change.

One of the points I can discern from both your contributions (@iVOTEahMENG, @Steven Kho) to this thread is that presidential pay helps to maintain the president’s dignity. I disagree. Is S$4M a year really necessary to provide the President of a sovereign state with ‘dignity’?

If you look at it from a basic human point of view, I believe one should only talk of maintaining or preserving dignity when one is not paid enough to afford decent clothing to wear, to nourish oneself properly and has no proper home to live in.

The S$4 million sum is for the President’s personal use. Everything else, including “entertainment expenses”, Istana maintenance and salaries of the Presidential support staff are covered in the Civil List and detailed in this Statute.

So @Steven Kho’s comparison of salaries with sports/business figures above is not a consideration of dignity.

Perhaps you are talking of a salary befitting his status and responsibilities as a head of state. Yes, I agree, as a head of state he should be paid more than the ministers in parliament. Surely, then, S$4 million is a reasonable amount, considering that the Prime Minister’s salary is S$3 million. Other ministers are paid S$1.5 million a year. Is this justified? The Government certainly thought so in 1994 when they released their White Paper linking competence and honesty with higher pay, and they have certainly stuck to this stand over the years.

But for me, I think this is legalising corruption rather than preventing it. I have personal experience that excuses are easy to make when one has privileged access to a public good (in my case, Internet access in the student residence where I am part of the volunteer admin team. I try to use my privileges for the benefit of others but mostly it’s for my own purposes that I take advantage of this. Whether this is corruption or not, I don’t know, but my point here is that keeping to principles is hard, and we should encourage people to/who do so.) and I think that for our public servants we should look for people with principles who are ready to perform their public duty with or without such perks.

With regards to political independence, @iVOTEahMENG is of course correct that each candidate will be backed by a political party. But this will happen whether or not the candidate solicits this/these parties for support, because the parties will want to throw their support behind particular candidates.

Dr. Tan Cheng Bock in his rally has raised a valid point that his fellow candidate Mr. Tan Jee Say while discrediting the other three Tans for being past PAP members and therefore less than completely independent, Mr. Tan Jee Say himself is a former SDP member and also not completely independent.

This is absolutely true. However, the point I believe Mr. Tan Jee Say has been trying to make is that as he has never been publicly affiliated with the PAP, he
can provide the necessary checks and balances on the majority-PAP government.

He is aware that his campaign also serves to raise the profile of “non-PAP forces” in preparation for the next election, which admittedly is not non-partisan as Mr. Tan Kin Lian claims to be and could therefore represent a conflict of interest.

But would paving the way for a more representative democracy really be a problem for Singapore?

Furthermore, I would like to point out that representatives from several parties have come out in support of Mr. Tan Jee Say, and this to me is much more of a unifying, representative effect than having more people support a person.

I know two candidates who are willing to use their personal pay for the public good, and neither of them is a Doctor. I don’t know who you will be voting for – it is your decision – but I am very sure now who I will want to see as the President.

We have met all these teams before, and because of our past results, some are already bubbling with excitement. @LigaSingapura is positive we can make it through, while @Ledgeddie is considering the possibilities, but has a nervous eye on some past events. @SazaliAbdulAziz is somewhat unsure, but thinks the draw looks good. I myself would love to see Singapore progress from this round, but as always I prefer to take things one step at a time.

Let’s look a bit more closely at these teams, starting with the Singaporeans’ favourite topic: rankings. In the July 2011 FIFA World Rankings, China is 73rd, Jordan 91st, Iraq 108th and we are 131st. Find out how the rankings work on Wikipedia. In the Elo ratings adapted for football, China sits in 47th place, Iraq 71st, Jordan 86th and Singapore 114th. (Would you believe the Elo ratings site has exceeded its traffic limit? Wow.) To find out the differences in ranking systems, read the Wikipedia explanation and compare for yourself.

Next stop: China. We travel there first on 2 September. Historically, our best result against them was a 2-1 win in the King’s Cup of 1982 in Thailand. Around this time, we also beat them twice 1-0, during the 1980 Olympics Qualifiers and the 1983 Merlion Cup. Our biggest defeat against them came in the 1990 Asian Cup hosted in Beijing, when we lost 5-1.

More recently, however, games have been tight and low-scoring affairs, with a 1-0 home win for China in August 2006 followed by a 0-0 draw at Kallang 3 weeks later during the AFC 2007 Asian Cup qualifiers. (Sidebar: check out some funny stats here.) A National Day Challenge invitational ended 1-1.

China have at least represented Asia at the World Cup before, though a 0-9 record and group stage elimination is certainly something they want to improve upon.

Even if you don’t look at the numbers, it is an interesting fixture: with Singapore’s recent good form heavily dependent on its naturalised players, among them Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi who were born in China, it could be seen as a test of loyalty not just for the players but for their fans. Personally, I think they have integrated well into Singapore football and Singaporean life, but they will always be asked such questions, and this is the chance for them to prove their doubters wrong.

I’ll follow up with Jordan and Iraq soon, but now it’s bedtime, so I’ll leave you with @LigaSingapura’s opinions: if we perform well at home and keep the defence solid when we’re travelling, we stand a good chance of going through to the next round.

Fatigue and jetlag will play a role though, as there will be 2 pairs of matches played within 1 week of each other. But then again, every team will be facing the same problem, so that should be no excuse.

In about 7 hours, the preliminary draw will take place in Rio de Janeiro to decide who our opponents will be in the group stage which begins in September 2011 and lasts till February 2012. All of the top 20 Asian teams in this round were also in the top 20 for the 2010 qualifiers, with the exception of Indonesia who replaced Turkmenistan by knocking them out 5-4 on aggregate. Also to be decided at the draw are the UEFA Qualifying Groups, always of interest to the average Singapore football fan weaned on a diet of English Premier League and moving on to the likes of Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga.

53 UEFA members will be vying for 13 spots in Brazil, and they will be divided into 9 groups. Group winners qualify automatically and the eight best runners-up will be drawn into play-offs to decide the last 4 spots.

What’s perhaps unknown to the casual Singaporean fan is the scale of the competition. In a region as anonymous for its football as North and Central America, where it is – probably rightly – assumed that the United States and Mexico are the only powerhouses and there isn’t much else to look out for, there are actually 35 countries competing for up to 4 spots in Brazil. Some might remember Jamaica’s appearance in 1998, Costa Rica in 2002, Trinidad and Tobago in 2006, and most recently Honduras in 2010. Perhaps the qualifying route there is easier… but it certainly does raise a few questions about our own assumptions regarding the Foreign Talent Scheme, doesn’t it?

All this and more will be decided at the draw in Rio de Janeiro, near the legendary Copacabana beach… preparing for a great festival of football ahead. Assuming those Mayans were wrong about 2012, of course.