Contributed by FAS
February 10, 2009 – The S.League has confirmed today that Brunei DPMM FC will be the 12th team in the competition for the 2009 season.
They will replace Chinese side Dalian Shide Siwu with the new campaign kicking off on Monday 16 February.
S.League CEO Winston Lee said, "We are delighted to welcome DPMM FC to the S.League. We were impressed with their proposal including their management capabilities. Our clubs playing their away games against DPMM FC in Brunei will definitely add to the excitement of the league and will also provide greater exposure and branding opportunities for the S.League and our partners."
Brunei DPMM FC will be based at the 30,000 capacity Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. In a first for the S.League, league matches will be played outside of Singapore with the other 11 teams flying to Brunei to take on DPMM FC at least once each during the season.
Said Brunei DPMM FC's Vice-Chairman, YAM Pengiran Anak Abdul Rahim, "The idea of playing in the S.League came about a couple of seasons ago. The S.League is very competitive and DPMM FC are looking forward to the challenge of playing in one of Asia's top 10 leagues. The inclusion of teams from Japan and Korea makes the S.League very exciting too, so it was a simple choice for us to want to be a part of this."
Brunei DPMM FC are coached by Croatian Vjeran Simunic and will make their S.League bow on 27 February when they take on the Young Lions at the Jalan Besar Stadium.
Their first S.League home game at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium will be on 5 March against 2008 runners-up Super Reds.
dont you know that dpmm is owned by the brunei prince!there have $$$..
One thing I know for sure, Brunei got the money (and at the moment no where to spend on).
; )
But the thing is, how long can the Brunei/S.League teams’ management sustain this additional cost? Particularly for a team like Woodlands Wellington who ran into financial difficulty last year.
Who knows, the Bruneian side might suddenly say in 2-3 years time that they will not cover the cost of the air travel of the Singapore teams anymore as it was financially too straining. We’d then be back to square one…
‘PART of the travel expenses’ actually.. as reported.
As much as there are uncertainties.this is definitely a new era
for S-league. We will see how it goes.
The foreign team do attract their own fans to matches. but from I can see, most of them are their family members and friends.
we still didn’t get the fanatic atmosphere you find in their domestic league.
hopefully, DPMM can show us something as they claim they can.
THAT is cool.. 🙂
as far as i know, the brunei’s teams management is covering the cost of air travel for ALL teams
Hmm.. With the S.League teams flying all the way to Brunei to play a S.League game, there might be more Brunei DPMM FC supporters showing up at their own stadium rather than turning up in Singapore.
For the foreign teams currently playing in Singapore, they attract their fans to both their home and away games, as both stadiums are located within the boundaries of Singapore. But I’m not so sure if the Brunei DPM FC supporters will fly all the way here to watch their team play. Sure, Bruneian fans in Singapore may show up. But I don’t think it would still be as many as compared if the team was based in Singapore.
But one thing is, with all the news about teams tightening their budgets, won’t air travel and accommodation (if necessary) add on to the expenses??
so far the foreign team didn’t bring in the fans as much as we expected.their attendance is on par with the local team.
let’s hope this experiment with DPMM FC will show some surprises.
it’s worth the risk.