Is the PAP’s “foreign talent” sports policy giving Singapore negative publicity overseas?
July 31st, 2010 | 
Author: OPINION
The PAP’s controversial “foreign talent” sports policy to import established sportsmen and women from other countries to represent Singapore in international competitions has drawn flak not only from Singaporeans, but from other countries as well.
During a Malaysian parliamentary session on 26 July 2010, Senator Datuk Nor Hayati Onn mooted the idea of recruiting “imports” from other countries like the PAP to represent Malaysia in sports.
Her suggestion was shot down by the Malaysian Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Senator Gan Ping Sieu who said doing so may create a “negative perception” on Malaysia.
“I’m not trying to accuse other countries of anything here, but take Singapore’s national table tennis squad for instance. All of the athletes are imported from China. If we follow the practice, it may give a negative perception towards our country,” Mr Gan said.
His remarks, which were not reported by the Singapore media, nevertheless caused a stir among Singapore netizens, many of whom agreed with him that the PAP is disgracing Singapore by “buying” medals using foreign imports instead of nurturing local talents.
What do you think of Mr Gan’s statement? Do you agree with him? Share your views here
TR Policy Forum, 27 July 2010
Stan Tan:
Actually Importing is’nt a problem.. It’s all about loyalty that counts. Sadly the FT are not here to stay but here to work to feed their family back in their homeland – thus > money earn leaks out to foreign country.
Madison Chua:
And that’s what we have been telling the authorities and officials all along: it casts a bad light on us as a nation that we have to import talents to win trophies and medals to satisfy our own narcissistic and egoistical cravings. There will be foolish individuals who don’t care about what others think.
Phillip Lee:
Am kinda the aggree on wht the Malaysian minister said… its is true that we import China ppl to play for Singapore, but can we call them Singapore national table tennis squad or China national table tennis squad?
Mark Chee:
Can someone please advise what did Singapore benefit from the win by our “Singapore” ping pong team, both in terms of international recognition in the sporting faculty and attracting foreign investment or commitment to invest in the future (trying to go long-term here)? What’s our ROI? Did our ministers achieve their KPIs, if any? Did the win inspire our residents to improve their productivity?
Albert Lin:
The government seems to have gotten it backwards in all way, not just with regards to sports. You do not cultivate a culture by first being the best. We have not suddenly become the Arts Hub of the world by splurging $600mil on the esplanade. We did not suddenly become the medical capital of Asia with the multi-million dollar tie-up with Johns Hopkins (which failed miserably)
The goal of sports isn’t to win gold medals or world championships. Even the country with the most self-proclaimed world champions understands this fact. The MLB (baseball) league may have the best players in the world, but they do not go around issuing green cards to players from Cuba, dominican republic, etc, just so they can win at the Olympics or the World Tournament.
In fact, they even scorn at the idea of professional players taking part in these competitions. They send their home-grown players. I remember when the “Dream Team” basketball team took part in the Olympics in the 90’s, the americans didn’t even celebrate the Gold Medal because they naturalized Hakeem Olajuwon so he could play for them.
Mohamad Kasim:
Where have all the Zainal Abidins, Peter Hill, Ang Peng Siong, David Lim, Junie Sng gone to? I hope these sportmen and women will let their children take up the sports they excel in so we can hv once again a true blue Singaporean champion, regardless whether its silver or bronze as long as they are born in Singapore.
An Nur:
Kevin Teo:
It is ok to have 20% foreigners in any sport teams, but to have the entire team from foreign countries, it does not truly represent S’pore. And to think that our govt spent so much on them to promote sports, is showing the world we can be 1st without true blue citizens so important ???
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Posted in 20 Responses to “Is the PAP’s “foreign talent” sports policy giving Singapore negative publicity overseas?”
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Eventually China and India would conquer the world of sports by their mere gigantic population…exports of these people would come under WTO.
Sports than =Trade.
Goodbye sports for sporting sake.
Enter sports for entertainment sake.
Exit- The spirit of Olympiads >>>participation and trying one’s best
Enter- The Gladiators >>> winners take all
PAP govt had shown the world that they can buy any medals that they want. This is a bad example of sportsmanship, and sportsmanship is not about buying instant success.
Only PAP wants to buy instant success to flatter their faces but backfired on YOG. This is how karma goes. Never cultivate proper culture for sports with the citizens – it will reflect back when they want the citizens to support YOG.
I would like the Singapore Government to stop taking short-cuts when it comes to achieving sports medals. I understand the need to open our economic doors to foreign talent. But sports competitions should be about home-grown talents.
I didn’t rejoice when Table Tennis garnered a silver at Olympics. I didn’t rejoice when they garnered gold at World Table Tennis championships because I could not call the members my fellow-women. I would have given greater support to REAL Singaporean born or bred sportsmen even if they don’t win anything.
Let’s recruit only foreign coaches if we want to learn from the best, not players.
Hello. What do you think the YOG is for? To recruit “Oi-LimPeiPickPick” level foreign sports talent to migrate here. Fertile ground for selection. Throw in free condoms to show they can screw us if they accept to play play for us.
The Sage, Lim Pei Say Swee Swee has spoken once again
Oi-LimPeiPick Gold Medalistics 2010
The Pro Alien Party cannot stop itself from perpetual social engineering.
Instead of investing to develop talents amongst Singaporeans, it will prefer to ‘pilfer’ the talents developed by other countries, and pay top money to develop these foreign talents and retain their services and artificially transplanted ‘loyalty’ as new Citizen in Singapore.
The Pro Alien Party is interested only in instantaneous results to boost the national image which it insist should be that of their vision.
To: Mohamad Kasim
“Where have all the Zainal Abidins, Peter Hill, Ang Peng Siong, David Lim, Junie Sng gone”….Junie Sng has long time ago (more than 20 years ago) emigrated to Australia. She said in Singapore national TV she left because of the 2nd language and she could not cope up with Chinese.
I believe her children in Australia could be good swimmer by now but of course they might not be good enough to make it into the Australian National Swim Team bec. they are the 2nd best in the world and in the 2006 Olympics, they were the best.
The only FT that we badly need now is to replace the entire PAP government.
Now teo ser luck wants to import foreigners to win in winter olympics!!!!!
Take a back test.
Look at dbs.
After ten years of ft.
look at where it is. factor in the goodies that it gets.
It is a lousy bank.
Long ago LKY had the right policy on sports i.e. mass participation for all. We should continue on this very wise policy and forget about importing FT to win medals.
I feel embarrassed. It means nothing. We allow these FTs to make a fool of us. The money spent can build more facilities for all Singaporeans. If they become champions so be it.
I remember GCT thinking that Spore can be in the FIFA world cup final by buying foreign talent. Stupid idea. Wasting our money.
The imported Chinese table tennis players (Yang Zi, Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu) are being “reexported” back to play in the Chinese domestic league as “foreign talents”.
What’s the big deal of being first here and first there, where the native citizens are not even proud of it. Why rally behind YOG, when the citizens just do not feel it!
It is a disgrace for any nation to buy foreigners to represent them in sports.
I am sure the rest of the world is laughing at us.
Why the fuck are we complaining? Just vote these assholes out in the next election. Period. Oh and FUCK the YOG.
Please understand that govt and PAP have no choice because Singapore only has a population of not more than 2 millions ( born and bred ).
And this 2 mil have difficulties in having more children to replace Singaporeans.
If don’t import foreigners like importing cars and fruits, Singapore will be an empty island.
There is nothing wrong in buying foreign imports sportsmen and women. When they win a medal, Sg national anthem will be played.
@PL
Uruguay has a population less than Singapore (3.3M vs 4.8M) and has a world-class football team.
If you think money can solve any problem, then that is a real problem.
I believe that all these foreign talent policy is the idea of the old fart. Unless he disappears from the air, nothing will change. We don’t want this senile useless mad dog leading our country any more. Save our country from being ruined by this dirty old fart.
Ohmygoodness, Malaysia now has real talent over Singapore. What happened? Did they import foreign talent from other countries to be their ministers now?
Actually,to me,they can buy all the sports talents they want but they really shouldn’t be importing FAKE TALENTS to take over the scarce decent jobs from Singaporeans and brought us down the PRODCUTIVITY rankings.
Comparing the two kinds of foreign imports,i think the FAKE TALENTS is more disgraceful.
WHilst countries like USA gst the REAL TALENTS from all over the world,our govt keeps importing the REJECTS countries like the USA thrown out!
How come our govt doesn’t consider it DAFT of themselves to keep bringing FOREIGN REJECTS into our crwoded-out economy and actaully cause PRODUCTIVITY to go down?
This is indeed an unfathomable govt which keep REPLACING REAL LOCAL TALENTS who brought consistently brought HONOUR and GLORY to the country with foreign REJECTS.
i guess there are simply too many DAFT SCHOLARS co-opted into govt.
this must change for the future good of this country and its loyal citizens.
I am never a fan of FT representing Singapore in any sports; what’s the point of winning the gold when these people arent even a Sinkie afew years back? It’s such a disgrace & PAP has this very wrong! They think that by winning a medal, it will make us proud, but that’s so far from true. Most of us arent too concerned about it & the rest are too busy worrying about their rice bowl.
Bring back the good old Malaysian Cup days when every local boys & gals cheered their hearts out for the Lions. During that time, I am sure most people were able to name half the national team. I would travel with many of my fellow Singaporeans to watch the Lions vs Pahang & sing & party on the bus. The mood was like any EPL games, but now, I dont even know how many FTs are playing for the national team. The government made a very bad mistake by leaving the Malaysian Cup & think that by importing FTs, we could make it to WC2010! Even if we did, I doubt you will find many real Sinkies in the team! Actually, come to think about it, all their policies had been rubbish!