Jakarta Casual

After just five initial rounds, the Premier League effectively took a three-month break to hold this year's competition for starters. Next up, Young Lions didn't enter; they prioritised the SEA Games (they lost both their group stage games and were home in time for Christmas) and, just to add to the sense of farce, Lion City Sailors and Tampines Rovers were given byes to the semi-final. 

Yep, that's right. Nearly 25% of the teams sat out the early round.

So, the Cup kicked off with a league format (?!) as the remaining five sides played each other once. Albirex Niigata and Balestier Khalsa qualified for the semi-finals where of course, they were drawn against Tampines and LCS respectively.

To sum up, the scheduling was a shambles, the format was a shambles, in keeping with that theme, it was more than appropriate the final too was a shambles.

Perhaps some out of the box thinking could save the Singapore Cup from just being a rehash of the same old clubs playing each other ad infinitum.

The Singapore FA Cup ran from September through to November 2025 and featured clubs from the Singapore Football League and the Island Wide League with ties played out in the heartlands which used to host SLeague games before the current nonsense of ground sharing was introduced.

Why not invite the eight quarter finalists to enter the Singapore Cup? This season, for example,e would have seen such exotic names as Geylang Serai, Police SA, Starlight Soccerites, Singapore Khalsa Association, Jungfrau Ponggol, Singapore Cricket Club, GDT Circuit and Warwick Knights.

Have the cup kick off with a Round of 16 which could even be over two legs, before proceeding as a normal cup competition. Gelang Serai v Geylang International or Young Lions v Jungfrau (!) would be interesting ties for starters.

By opening up the Cup to teams beyond the suffocating SPL and playing ties across the island may go some way to adding some spice to what is currently little more than an extension to the SPL.

# posted by Me @ 2:27 AM