The “Singaporean” Idea

In the latest (stupid) initiative to boost crowd attendance in our local S-League, the S-League board has decided to adopt a proposal of fining the 2 clubs that finished at the bottom of the league.

This proposal was meant to inject “excitement” in the league but thus far all it managed to do is to draw flak and a shake of the head from fans in Singapore. Correction; from fans throughout the world! Even foreign news agencies such as Reuters and UK's Daily Mail got into the act, denouncing the proposal with derision.

Yet despite all the negative feedback (one poll in Singapore has 77% of its respondents against the proposal), it seems the S-league has no intention of backing down. S-League CEO Lim Chin has shown no indication of cancelling the proposal and it now seems the proposal will be in place for the next S-League season.

Now some of you may be asking why? The fact that the proposal is so out of this world that even news agencies from the U.K are laughing at it should be enough to tell anyone how bad of an idea this is. When this proposal is put in place, the S-League may be the only league in the world that financially penalized teams for not being winners!

The answer to the question why is due to the fact this is Singapore. In the Singapore context, this proposal makes sense. In Singapore, winners are rewarded while all the rest are to fend for themselves. So in a way, this S-League proposal makes sense because it is a distinctly “Singaporean” idea. If you are last, you must pay for finishing there! Only in Singapore would this proposal have a chance of being implanted.