By JOSE RAYMOND
How much is UNLEASH THE ROAR costing the Singapore taxpayers?
And the more serious question is why is this programme being considered as a public good?
Based on the National Sport and Exercise Participation Survey, football is nowhere in the top 10.
And while football is not the de jure national sport, it is granted that it could be among the most watched, but this includes fans of the English Premier League.
Even then, the Singapore Grand Prix which has 300,000 annual spectators, probably has a higher number of fans if compared with the number of fans who actually turn up to watch matches at local stadiums in a year. *note that there is no such available data out there to show the comparisons
So the question again is: why is football getting special treatment and is being funded by the taxpayer? Should it not be driven by corporate funding?
Would the national sports agency also start an UNLEASH THE WAVES to help develop swimmers and polo players at the youngest levels since swimming has delivered more medals for Singapore over the years and is a guaranteed golden goose?
Would the national sports agency decide to UNLEASH THE JORDANS to help boost the development of basketball, which is an immensely popular sport among the community to help it grow and win medals too?
Would the national sports agency start an UNLEASH THE BRAINS programme to get more youngsters involved in chess, since it is changing the definition of sport to include chess and e-sports?
Would the national sports agency also start an UNLEASH THE NOISE to fund the development of pickleball since there is so much interest (read noise) in the game now? (Fine, this is just taking a dig at the pok pok pok of pickleball)
If football is the most marketable sport in the world, then surely there will be no issues in trying to raise private funding to run UNLEASH THE ROAR.
Having UNLEASH THE ROAR continue to be funded by public funds and having it being considered a public good makes little sense.
The sport of football should be regarded as a product and the domain experts and its affiliates are responsible in keeping it alive.
If they do decide to take the sport into the intensive care unit, then it is not the duty of the public to keep them alive.
The plug should be pulled.