Wanted: footballers and fans of character

By Les Tan

We obviously have a lunatic fringe among the football crowd whose highest desire on game day is to go to the National Stadium and take part in collective stupidity with their own kind.

After two years of watching Singapore sports at school and national level up close, the game of football seems to be particularly infected with this stupid gene. The arrogance transmitted via the English Premier League, with famous players mouthing off to referees and each other, is the singularly largest influence on footballers.

When I watched the inter-school B Division South Zone Football Championship final between Bishan Park Secondary and Queensway Secondary last year, I saw it on display. A Bishan Park central defender spat at his opponent in full view of the referee, the coaches, the students in the stands at CCAB. I even took a picture of the guy but decided I wouldn’t give stupidity publicity on Red Sports.

What did the referee do? The referee just talked to him and let him off with a warning. I thought it deserved a yellow card at least, but then I am an old fuddy duddy who believes that sportsmen should respect each other.

Where do 15 year olds learn behaviour like that? Television.

But who allows such behaviour on field? The referees, the coaches and the official organisers. Winning isn’t everything and character counts for more.

The boys who shamefully attacked the 29-year-old Vietnamese fan Nguyen on Sunday night outside the National Stadium were in their early 20s, according to Nguyen.

Where did they learn behaviour like that? Perhaps the line wasn’t drawn clearly enough for them at an early age by parents, coaches and referees. So now we suffer the consequence and Singapore gets a tarnished reputation.

Of course, not all footballers are like that.

I witnessed impeccable sportsmanship on display at the A Division Football Championship earlier this year. In the two semi-finals I watched, there was no diving, no play-acting, no asking the referee to give a card to a fellow opponent. In other words, none of the boorish behaviour you watch on television transmitted from the English Premier League.

And why were they so well behaved? Their coaches, their teachers-in-charge wouldn’t tolerate it because they are men of character.

Let us have more such men taking charge of our footballers from a young age. Only then can we have football fans and players who will do themselves, their schools and their country proud on a national stage in their grown up years.