Thursday, December 09, 2010
Do It Lion Style
For as long as I have been living in these parts the term globalisation has been little more than a buzz word, along with hub and leverage, used by persons of status and power to show what big long words they know. Like wallpaper very flowery but largely irrelevant.
Perhaps the ASEAN Football Federation Cup is changing that.
The Philippines have blazed into an unlikely semi final against Indonesia powered by players with names like Neil Etheridge and the Younghusbands. They sound like characters in Open All Hours or Coronation Street, not a South East Asian football team. And Indonesia have also began to tentatively dip their toe into the diaspora pool by adding Irfan Bachdin, half Dutch, half Indonesian, to their ranks alongside recently naturalised Christian Gonzalez.
Lacking a diaspora of their own, beyond students in universities round the world training to become doctors, Singapore have had their own Foreign Talent Scheme whereby players interested in playing for the national team would be identified then given five years to become a Singaporean. This path has proved immensely successful over the years producing players like Mustafic Fahruddin and Aleksander Duric but seems to have run out of steam of late. But that may soon be about to change.
I understand the Football Association of Singapore are mulling over revolutionary new proposals to be added to their Strategic Plan that could, it is hoped, guarantee a steady flow of talent for the next generation.
'You know them Uncles (English translation - randy old buggers) who fly off to tiny Chinese villages or sign up with on line dating agencies to snap up a mail order bride lah? We want same, same lah but different. We want Singapore women to marry foreign men then produce male heirs who will go on to play for the national team isn't it' said a confidential sauce.
It is understand that women signing up for the scheme would receive prime HDB units round the island as well as a shopping voucher for the favourite salon or boutique while foreign husbands would be offered citizenship if the wanted and also free membership to a golf club of their choice.
For now the biggest stumbling block to introducing the scheme is whether the children will be called upon to do National Service later on.
Officials are hoping the scheme will prove to be a win win for Singapore as children who fail to make the grade as a footballer could perhaps go onto to a burgeoning movie industry where they can become actors as Singapore seeks to cash in on Universal World by creating its own studios to be called Sillywood.
Mabel was so excited when she heard the news that she started chasing a foreign man down Lavender Road, slipped, twisted her ankle and broke her stilletos. Luckily there were some regular customers at the bus stop nearby who recognised her and carried her back to her coffee shop.
She remains unperturbed though and in a text message to me later she said that she loves her country and would do anything (to anyone) to help it achieve success on the world stage.
# posted by Me @ 3:06 PM 
