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Do foreign sports talents make us feel weak?

N

NHGdiagnostics

Guest
Any discussion about sports in Singapore will inevitably involve foreign talents these days. The national table-tennis team is described as China’s second team, while the national football team also takes a knock or two from critics because the spine of the squad is foreign-born. The national badminton team also comes in for comments with its mix of Indonesian, Thai and China-born athletes. Some Singaporeans who are born and bred on this little island find it hard to empathise with them.

We live in a different world now. To survive, we have opened our borders to talent. So at our work places, we meet Filipinos, Thais, Americans, Europeans, Malaysians, among others. Do people complain? Yes, they do. There is fear, founded or unfounded, that foreign talents are taking jobs belonging to Singaporeans.

The same arguments engulf our national sports teams. Some foreign-born talents will go to the Olympics at the expense of some Singapore-born players. Those who miss out will naturally feel aggrieved.

There is another perspective in this debate - that supremely talented Singaporean athletes who are as good or better than the foreign talents dropped out long before they hit their full potential. Why? The usual reasons - studies, career. Sit coaches or sports officials down and they will tell of talents who said “No, thank you” to a sports career and went the usual, sensible and rational life route.

Have you seen a footballer so mesmerising at your weekend games and wondered why he never played at national level? Have you seen a badminton player so skillful that you wonder why he never wore full national colours? Have you seen a table-tennis exponent so good that you’d pay money to watch him play? We all have.

Sports remind us of who we are as a people and as a nation because the national teams wear only one flag and carry only one name - Singapore. A national team with a significant foreign-born presence uncomfortably tell us that we are a people of convenience and pragmatism. Whatever works, some say. The ends justify the means, others say. If we get an Olympic medal, who cares whether the athlete is born and bred in Singapore, another will say. But it’s obvious some do care, and at a deeper, emotional and psychic level. Pragmatism gets things done but leaves us cold.

Perhaps, in the end, seeing a foreign-born athlete representing us on the field reminds us of a harsher fact - that one-on-one, on the field or court of play, the foreign-born player is better than us and we are weak. Why? Because if the best of our born-and-bred don’t play, then a significant skills gap opens up, and the foreign-born will beat us and fill it. And if our best born-and-bred don’t play, then no self-respecting coach will ever choose a player just based on the player’s place of birth. He chooses the best and some of the best are foreign-born right now. Coaches are blind to nationality, but their eyes light up to talent.

So the question is this: are our best born-and-bred Singaporeans willing to play?
 
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