The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has been slammed for calling for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EOGM) on 7 Nov without any further consultation with its affiliates. The affiliates pointed out that the reason why the AGM held on 24 Sep was postponed was because the current FAS office holders wanted more time to consult with affiliates about changes to the Constitution which were proposed.
The disgruntled affiliates say that notice for the EOGM was sent late on Saturday night giving them very short deadline to meet for any proposed changes. The adoption of the new FAS constitution is the only point on the Agenda.
One FAS member who is upset by the sudden call of the EOGM is Alfred Dodwell. He proposed 40 changes to FAS’ new constitution last month.
Mr Dodwell a lawyer and the representative of Island Wide League (IWL) side Gymkhana FC said: “After the AGM, we expected them to call us in for a discussion, considering that we were the ones who tabled the most amendments to their proposed constitution.”
Speaking to The New Paper, he added: “There was no discussion… Not a sniff; not a call to ask us to come down for a discussion. This is unbelievable – they’re going about it in exactly the same way as they did the first time.”
The FAS has 46 affiliates: nine are S.League sides, 10 National Football League clubs, 14 IWL clubs and 13 others (including 5 clubs from the Women’s Premier League). Other affiliates like Alim Omar, manager of National Football League (NFL) side Siglap FC, echoed Mr Dodwell’s sentiments.
Writing in his Facebook, Mr Dodwell said: “this is the final nail in your coffin of running FAS as your own kingdom without consultation with the real people that matter, the stakeholders. We need you and your team to be thrown out with the bath water! We need a new team at FAS. This must not comprise even one of the existing incumbents.”
Expressing that it is his firm view that the current FAS Board cannot be trusted to consult the stakeholders on all aspects of FAS for the next 4 years, Mr Dodwell who is part of Team Venga that is hoping to contest the upcoming election for Office-holders, said that it should have been the new team who should have deliberated on issues like the hiring of Fandi Ahmad. Fandi, a local soccer icon, was appointed as head coach of youth footballers a few days ago.
“For the record you have shamelessly stolen this idea from Vengadasalam Rengayyan who proposed hiring Fandi Ahmad and making him an ambassador for Singapore Football,” Mr Dodwell said.
“This was in our planned manifesto and Venga had spoken to Fandi Ahmad about this. Now you have hired him to go and … spread the incumbent’s FAS ” vision” and soften the ground with the stakeholders,” he added.
Last year, the FIFA said that the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) should end third-party influence in the Association, even if that third party is a government ministry. FAS acceded to FIFA’s request. It is believed that Venga will field a team to contest in the upcoming FAS Annual General Meeting.
The current President of FAS is former Member of Parliament (MP) Zainudin Nordin, who was also the MP for the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC. One of its four vice presidents is Edwin Tong, MP for Moulmein-Kallang GRC. He was expected to take over from Zainuddin before the new FIFA requirement kicked-in.