By Les Tan/Red Sports
I know who started the fight with Jordan. But I’m not telling you.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, there was a fight after the game between Singapore and Jordan at the National Stadium. Singapore beat Jordan 2-1 to get their Asian Cup qualifying campaign back on track while the loss condemned Jordan to the bottom of the table with only one point.
All three local English newspapers – The New Paper, The Straits Times, Today – have covered the story, with Straits Times giving it front page prominence.
What was just a football story became a boxing/muay thai/street fighter story.
The New Paper has revealed that the fight was started by a Singapore player who had brainlessly taunted the Jordanians.
“We were sitting in the dressing room and then heard banging on the door and when it was opened, one of the Singaporean players said ‘#%^$#&’,” Jordanian coach Eduardo Vingada told the New Paper (S’pore started it; Friday, January 30, 2009).
Singapore team manager Eugene Loo, somehow missed out on this fact while recounting what happened to the New Paper, highlighting that an assistant Jordanian coach had threatened them saying, “Come to Jordan, you die.”
So it looks like a Singapore player thoughtlessly provoked the Jordanians. I’m not telling you who it is because he doesn’t deserved to be mentioned and we should let FAS handle the discipline of the player quietly. Mentioning his name in public will do nobody any good.
The Jordanians have no excuse for resorting to physical violence and for that they should be sanctioned by the Asian Football Confederation.
But a national football player wearing the country’s flag shouldn’t be so stupid as to start it.
IS ALAM SHAH INVOLVED WOWOWOWO MY IDOL 😀
So you know who’s the culprit mate?
why don’t present your story to the police?
they are after all looking for witnesses
The police will have to interview the witnesses. I wasn’t a witness but our sources are reliable.
I won’t write the name because there really is no point and the FAS should deal with it. The players will end up taking care of each other and so probably the whole story won’t come out.
But the New Paper did the best coverage of it and their sequence of events is the most credible and logical for explaining why a bunch of players, already in their dressing room, would come exploding out of the room unless provoked.
You will notice that the Singapore team manager Eugene Loo, while saying that the Jordanian coach did say “Come to Jordan, you die” did not actually accuse the Jordanian coach of calling his team out to fight.
So why did they come out? I think the New Paper got it correct – the Jordanians were provoked by the taunt.
Of course, the Jordanians will come out on the losing end of this argument because they started the fist fight but the provocation is understandable.
Soccernet say till Jordan like perpatrator, Singapore victim leh
vincent> i dont want to start anything, but from a third person point of view this is what i think. no way is this site biased against spore. if anything, they can be said to be maybe (maybe) a bit too behind spore (see “Only 6,188 fans show up for important Asian Cup football qualifier” article, where the size of the jordanian flag at the stadium was used to hint at the jordanian’s ego). but redsports has, and we should be glad someone has done this, pointed out the sheer inexplicability of what the spore player in question did. when bush went into iraq what did the media call him, i remember stupid being hurled around. its got nothing to do with that player, just the act i guess.
the last two paragraphs were simple yet so true. ‘violence’ and ‘stupid’ are extremely easy and capture the whole issue well, i think. both provoker and provoked deserve punishment if u ask me. but it would be sad if the match between jordan and s’pore over at jordan gets shifted out of jordan/ awarded to s’pore/ played in jordan but in a closed stadium.
Correct me if i’m wrong, i kind of feel you are biased against our national football team. Even though i would agree with you that we should not be provoking the opponents to such an extent but neither should you label him as ‘stupid’ and ‘brainless’.
No doubt our lions may not be the best educated ppl in singapore,still that does not make them stupid. And who knows, given the exact same situation, maybe someone ‘smart’ would have reacted in the same way or even worse
hi vincent. i find it inexplicable that a person would bang on the door of the opposing team, open it and shout an expletive.
What was he trying to do? Can we blame the Jordanian team for exploding and fighting?
When I read the first newspaper reports, I was wondering why the Jordanian team exploded. Where was the provocation? What made them pick up brooms and even an electric fan to fight?
It wasn’t revealed.
The New Paper story today revealed the provocation and our sources confirmed the New Paper report.
My article was directed at that one player and not a commentary on the national team. We support the national team of any sport here on Red Sports. We have the biggest picture coverage of the national football team. We have more pictures than the Straits Times, New Paper and Today combined.
We have more stories focused on the the game while the English papers have given more prominence to the fight.
I wasn’t also referring to the educational level of the players. I have no idea what the player’s education level is and it doesn’t matter whether he has no O Levels or is a PhD student.
Opening a door to shout obscenities at a room full of middle eastern players is really quite stupid and brainless. There is no other way to describe it.