Contributed by Tanty Nazlianah

Singapore, September 22, 2010 — Slightly more than a week after the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) announced its target of garnering at least six medals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the National Sports Associations (NSAs) were today told of the key role they will play in helping Singapore achieve its targets which have been set for Singapore in 2016.

This was shared today by SSC Chief Executive Officer Oon Jin Teik at a dialogue with NSAs to kick-off the Annual National Sports Association Grant Exercise (ANGE) for Financial Year 2011.

“It is a priority that we have a systemic development for sports to achieve our target. The NSAs need to spend the time and effort to develop a process and pipeline that will create a system that surrounds athletes with world-class resources and expertise, so as to groom them into potential medal winners,” said Mr Oon.

Developing a High Performance Pipeline
Getting them to start playing early, identifying sports talents at a young age and ensuring that they are kept within the national elite system, is a role which NSAs have a huge part in playing, alongside other key partners like the Singapore Sports School and mainstream schools. The SSC, through its annual funding to NSAs via ANGE, will continue to work closely with NSAs to develop and further fine-tune the national elite system.

With a system in place, NSAs were encouraged to develop effective Multi-Year Sports Plans (MYSPs), which encompasses every area of developing their respective sport, from mass participation to talent identification, to high performance. NSAs were encouraged to develop effective MYSPs that builds year upon year, eventually developing an integrated framework and process that would give athletes what they need in order to be podium ready.

Moving Forward with ANGE FY 2011
NSAs were urged to up the ante in their overall performance and organisational excellence, as Singapore geared itself for the next lap, following the successful hosting of the Asian Youth Games in 2009 and the recently concluded Youth Olympic Games. NSAs will have to review and upgrade their existing plans, which were submitted for FY 2010.

The SSC, through its Sports Performance Managers, will be assisting NSAs which do not have multi-year sports plans to start developing multi-year plans for FY 2011. NSAs are to submit their multi-year plans to the SSC by 8 November 2010.

In order to be eligible for ANGE funding from FY 2011 onwards, NSAs have to register for charity status by 31 December 2010. This requirement was announced by the SSC in October 2009 in a bid to elevate NSAs’ standards of governance, which will bolster their fund-raising efforts and enhance public and corporate confidence in them.

In addition, with charity status, the NSAs will enjoy automatic income and property tax exemptions for premises used exclusively for charitable purposes, as well as gain access to the VWOs-Charities Capability Fund (VCF), which is made available to all charities until 31 March 2012. About one-third of the NSAs are already in the final stage of Charity registration/obtained Charity status.

Concluded Mr Oon: “With the investments by the Government put into the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), the Olympic Pathway Programme, the Singapore Sports School and the mainstream schools, we strongly advocate NSAs to work with the SSC and other sporting partners to come up with a comprehensive multi-year strategy in order to achieve a sustained podium success at Major Games and world championships.”