Cardiff City’s Perry Ng, who had previously indicated that he was keen to represent the Singapore Lions, has revealed that issues involving his passport has caused some confusion and is delaying his call-up to the Singapore national football team.
He was responding to questions at a pre-match media conference ahead of Cardiff City’s English Championship clash against Watford.
“It’s confusing for me, to be honest,” he said in a video posted on BBC Sport.
“We all want to get on but it’s just that I have to change my British citizenship to a Singapore citizenship.
“It’s very confusing so I would have to give up my passport, so there’s a lot of legal stuff involved.”
Singaporean citizens are not allowed to hold dual nationality.
He added that “everything is ready to go on their side” and “we are trying to see what we can do”.
“It’s just stuff with my passport and how it will affect me here (in the United Kingdom) which we are not quite sure on at the minute.”
The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) first sounded out to Ng about the possibility of representing Singapore in June 2018.
He is eligible to turn out for Singapore because his late paternal grandfather, James, was born in Singapore and later settled in Liverpool.
In an earlier statement issued by FAS in 2019 in response to a story to The New Paper, it said, “Based on Article 7(c) of Fifa’s Statutes, Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, Perry is eligible to play for Singapore due to his ancestry link through his paternal grandfather and if he holds a Singapore passport.
“However, as Perry is not a Singapore citizen, he will still be required to fulfil the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s (ICA) requirement for citizenship application.
“The FAS is open to foreign players who can contribute positively to Singapore football and we will work closely with the incoming national team head coach and technical director for any decisions we undertake in naturalising foreign talents.”
Ng had previously indicated that he was keen to play for the Lions and he repeated his message again in his latest comments.
“It will be nice to go over and represent them, do it for my family, do it for my grand-dad,” he said.
Following the Lions’ exit from the ASEAN Football Federation Championships at the start of the year following the ignominious 4-1 defeat to Malaysia, the national football body revealed in a statement to The Straits Times that it would speed up the process of getting foreign-born players to represent the Lions.
It said then that it was “increasingly evident that we need to concurrently explore the option of expediting the process of integrating naturalised players via the existing Foreign Talent Scheme”.
Among the foreign talents who have represented Singapore over the years include Itimi Dickson, Abu Casmir, Egmar Goncalves, Mirko Grabovac, Daniel Bennett, Mustafic Fahrudin, Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi.
MAIN PHOTO: PERRY NG INSTAGRAM