National Stadium to switch to artificial turf

SINGAPORE — After months of controversy and spending S$1.5 million on new lighting equipment to try to improve the quality of the National Stadium pitch, Sports Hub Pte Ltd (SHPL) is making a drastic U-turn: It will resurface the pitch permanently with artificial turf — the surface it had originally considered but opted against, TODAY has learnt.

This means that less than six months after the new stadium was opened, the S$800,000 Desso GrassMaster pitch — a hybrid of synthetic and natural grass— faces the prospect of being replaced with an all-new synthetic surface.

Sources said the cost will be borne by SHPL. For promoters of sports events who insist on natural grass, TODAY understands that SHPL will install it over the artificial pitch temporarily and this can be done in less than 72 hours. In response to queries, SHPL chief operating officer Oon Jin Teik said: “We are exploring several pitch solutions that can cater to our multipurpose sports and entertainment calendar at the National Stadium. More details will be released at a later date.”

The consortium already has a nursery that is used to grow grass to be installed outside the football pitch for cricket matches that require a bigger turf. In future, this will also be used to grow grass for the main pitch.

In March last year, TODAY reported that SHPL had been considering installing artificial grass for the National Stadium in view of a hectic calendar for the 55,000-seat arena.

The plan was abandoned later in favour of the Desso GrassMaster. Artificial turfs are approved for use in elite competitions by international sports bodies such as FIFA and the International Rugby Board. However, some teams, including several English Premier League football clubs and international rugby sides such as the Wallabies and the Maori All Blacks, are known to insist on playing on natural grass.

When the stadium was opened in June, it hosted the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, among other events.

The pitch failed to recover in time for the high-profile football friendly matches between Juventus and a Singapore Selection side as well as between Brazil and Japan in August and last month, respectively.

A series of hasty measures were taken to help the pitch recover for the ongoing AFF Suzuki Cup, including cancellations of a concert by Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou and an Asia Pacific Dragons versus Maori All Blacks rugby friendly match. However, sandy patches were still visible on the field when Thailand defeated Singapore 2-1 in Sunday’s opening match.

Speaking from Spain, Mr Paul Burgess, chief groundsman for Spanish football club Real Madrid, said laying natural turf over synthetic grass is not uncommon. For example, Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, which has a permanent artificial pitch, installed natural grass temporarily for the 2008 Champions League Final between English clubs Chelsea and Manchester United.

“It has been done in many stadiums and can be installed very quickly,” said Mr Burgess. “All you need is about three to four days to lay the natural turf over artificial pitch. If you maintain it properly, it can last at least a month. If you don’t maintain it properly, it will last a day.”

TODAY

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sinkie would now rather agree to have them initially paid 'linked' consultants to evaluate to goes artificial or hybrid for a princely sum of S$400,000/- (same as renaming Marina Bay con job), we be S$400,000/- better off.

Now taxpayers footing total S$800,000/- PLUS the artifical turf, another couple of hundred thousands of OUR MONEY !!!!

songsongjurong said:

Now taxpayers footing total S$800,000/- PLUS the artifical turf, another couple of hundred thousands of OUR MONEY !!!!

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The money did not come from taxpayers. It was from the dividends paid out to Ho Ching from her prudent and high yielding investments.

You should thank her for being such a gem. Without Madam Ho, there would no stadium for you guys in the first place.

Leongsam said:

The money did not come from taxpayers. It was from the dividends paid out to Ho Ching from her prudent and high yielding investments.

You should thank her for being such a gem. Without Madam Ho, there would no stadium for you guys in the first place.

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Hahahahahasaarrrrhhhh!!!!!!!

Leongsam said:

The money did not come from taxpayers. It was from the dividends paid out to Ho Ching from her prudent and high yielding investments.

You should thank her for being such a gem. Without Madam Ho, there would no stadium for you guys in the first place.

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Without CPF Funds your Madam Ho will still be working in MINDEAF and there be no minimum sum cap on CPF.

Confuseous said:

SINGAPORE — After months of controversy and spending S$1.5 million on new lighting equipment to try to improve the quality of the National Stadium pitch, Sports Hub Pte Ltd (SHPL) is making a drastic U-turn: It will resurface the pitch permanently with artificial turf — the surface it had originally considered but opted against, TODAY has learnt.

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2.3 million down the drain... Neat. Which idiot/s needs a kick in the arse?

shittypore said:

Without CPF Funds your Madam Ho will still be working in MINDEAF and there be no minimum sum cap on CPF.

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Without CPF funds, holy jinx will be standing at petain, with board reading, "cheapcheapcheap, please try me.""

what's happening now in singapore is all those goons are OVERPAID. they are goons and try to be too sophisticated at the expenses of the people's money.

i bet no singaporean would ever expect that grass turfing could end up to be so astronomically expensive and still fails. a simple matter turns fucking complicated and super exxpensive at the incompetent of obscenely overpaid pappies.

singapore could be a goner in record time if this continues :(

It worked in Etihad & emirates stadium, nobody responsible for this debacle ? swept under carpet once more ?
govt turn into UMNO under table tactics to raid public coffers...every decision maker dips into cookie jar, again and again...

If it happened in a 3rd world country, understandable. Imagine such a cock-up in scholar-led S'pore and thisvhas nothing to do with rocket science.

What happened to 'waiting for the grass to grow'? What happened to the expensive lamps for boosting the growth of the grass?

Scholar fucktards are ruining this country. SG50 can :kma:

songsongjurong said:

It worked in Etihad & emirates stadium, nobody responsible for this debacle ? swept under carpet once more ?
govt turn into UMNO under table tactics to raid public coffers...every decision maker dips into cookie jar, again and again...

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You see, those stadiums have competent groundsmen that work the pitch round-the-clock. Home games at the stadiums also only happen once every two weeks. At the end of the season, the entire pitch is reworked in preparation for the next season.



I doubt the stadiums of football clubs are used to squeeze in Jay Chou concerts etc.

Should play the international games at the Marina Bay float.

Can't hold many spectators but skyline awesome for international broadcasts.

Sports Hub stadium should not be used for sports. It should be used for Jay Chou, GDragon, Stefanie, etc

National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

Singapore Sports Hub pitch fiasco: The Untold Story

Michael Y.P. Ang is a Singaporean freelance journalist. He worked at the former Singapore Sports Council before covering local and international sports for Channel NewsAsia for several years. Like his Facebook page Michael Ang Sports for commentaries on sports issues that matter to Singaporeans.

COMMENT

By Michael Y.P. Ang

What's happened in Singapore football, off the pitch, the past few days was more intriguing than even the most fiercely contested S-League match.

Few would have expected another football flip-flop, just days after last Saturday's S-League announcement about the reversal of a recently introduced age-discriminatory policy.

But the TODAY newspaper, with its Nov 26 front-page headline "National Stadium to switch to artificial turf", reported that SportsHub Pte Ltd (SHPL), the company managing the Singapore Sports Hub, was about to re-lay Singapore's most famous football ground with an artificial turf.

The paper found itself making a U-turn 24 hours later (links to its original story have also been removed), carrying a correction in its Voices section to announce that its artificial-turf report was wrong, or at least premature.

Thanks to the hard work of stadium ground staff, the Kallang turf is less sandy now than during the Brazil-Japan match last month, but SHPL has yet to fully resolve the pitch problem. An artificial turf is among different options being considered and discussions are still ongoing, according to a spokesperson.

But the glaring issue remains, after years of planning and construction and billions thrown into the project, why and how has it come to this?

Three lingering issues

A Nov 27 Straits Times report shows that SHPL will bear the cost of providing an ideal pitch, but who will foot the bill for the $1.5 million spent on new lighting equipment for enhancing the quality of the problematic pitch?

Under the public-private partnership between the government and SHPL, Singaporean taxpayers are on the hook for the Sports Hub's construction and operational costs. Would taxpayer money be required to fund the cost of rectifying a problem SHPL should have prevented in the first place?

Secondly, why was SHPL CEO Philippe Collin Delavaud's subordinate, COO Oon Jin Teik, the one facing the media and making apologies last month? Isn't it unfair to the former Singapore Olympic swimmer, who joined SHPL only a month before the stadium's June reopening?

It would have been more appropriate for the Frenchman, who's been at the helm since 2010, to be in the public eye during a crisis.

Thirdly, why was SHPL's senior director of stadia Greg Gillin, the person overseeing the pitch installation, working on a major overseas project during the crucial final months of construction at the Sports Hub?

Within three months of joining SHPL in April 2013, Gillin was hired as a pitch consultant for the Indian Super League (ISL). The Australian soon became a frequent flyer to India, visiting ten sports centres, eight of which were eventually selected as ISL stadiums.

This year, from May to October alone, Gillin “made around 120 visits to the eight venues”to ensure that they met international standards.

To be fair, there's nothing wrong with engaging in external work. But puzzlingly, Gillin was spending time away from Singapore when he himself had expected "teething problems" at the rebuilt National Stadium.

The ISL kicked off on Oct 12, and there's been no pitch fiasco reported in India. Why was Gillin able to do so much and so well for eight stadiums overseas but not for the only stadium he is responsible for in his full-time job?

The Straits Times reported on Oct 14 that "The Sports Hub have flown in overseas consultants such as Alex Garbea, who was responsible for ... the best field at the recent World Cup in Brazil".

Is it logical that the Sports Hub's own pitch chief was consulting overseas while the Sports Hub was forced to hire foreign consultants to find solutions to its own pitch problem?

Such a fiasco would have been unlikely had Sport Singapore been chosen to manage the National Stadium. After all, it has an outstanding record of running Singapore's largest sporting arena for 37 consecutive years.

Ultimately, the question should be: "Is a public-private partnership like the one at the Sports Hub the best way to build and operate a cluster of highly important, public sports facilities?".

We should find an answer quickly, because like it or not, we're stuck with the arrangement for the next quarter-century.

Re: National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

You let incompetent, overpaid people take charge... the consequence shall also be likewise: incompetence and overpaid.

Cause and effect. It's very simple to understand.



And to make things worse, you don't punish or even rebuke these people. This makes them think they have done nothing wrong, and on top of that, they are emboldened to screw up another project in future, because they are already utterly convinced of their own brilliance.

Vicious cycle repeats.

Cause and effect.

Singapore 'meritocracy'.

Re: National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

So it is a public private partnership whereby taxpayer foot the bill for the mistakes made by the private company? Is it a no limit top up by taxpayer? No wonder the company bochap and spend more time doing other business.

Looks like lousy company with Angmoh CEO not answerable but get local scapegoat to answer to grass problems.

Re: National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

there was also a machine from germany to thread the grass roots together but was used for the world cup instead when toh eng hock was the landscape contractor.

Re: National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

We should hire PRC experts to solve these interminable problems.

They built the beautiful stadia for Olympics and Youth Olympics.

And they put on the best ever show for the world - still remember the Li Ning flight?

Sinkies worship blonde hair and hire some French absentee manager when there are so many solid PRC talent!

Re: National Stadium grass fuckup - The Untold Story

laksaboy said:

You let incompetent, overpaid people take charge... the consequence shall also be likewise: incompetence and overpaid.

Cause and effect. It's very simple to understand.

And to make things worse, you don't punish or even rebuke these people. This makes them think they have done nothing wrong, and on top of that, they are emboldened to screw up another project in future, because they are already utterly convinced of their own brilliance.

Vicious cycle repeats.

Cause and effect.

Singapore 'meritocracy'.

Click to expand...

Singapore's meritocracy confers privilege for life! Now you know why kiasu parents are sending their kids to more and more tuition. One exam and one interview and you are set for life.