“The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) notes the statements made by Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) secretary-general Chris Chan during the post-mortem of Singapore’s performance at the SEA Games on Wednesday (Dec 11).

 

“Mr Chris Chan’s statement questioning the unfairness of the FAS in naming the 9 players until FAS had completed a thorough investigation has thrown negative light on the FAS.

 

“The FAS would like to emphasize that it did not take the decision of naming the nine players lightly and would not have done so had there been the slightest doubt of even one of them being wrongly identified and wrongfully accused.

 

“In fact, a very thorough investigation was swiftly undertaken by head coach Fandi Ahmad, the Team Manager and the FAS Technical Director on 2nd December 2019 and thereafter when evidence surfaced of the breach of curfew by 6 players.

 

“The evidence secured against the 6 players included audio recording of the admission of each of the 6 players to the curfew break, and written statement from each of them. The names of the 6 players were only revealed days after the completion of a thorough investigation namely on 5th December 2019, upon the completion of the last match of the team’s group stage matches.

 

“As regards the other 3 players, the FAS had also conducted an equally thorough investigation and from the concrete evidence secured, find no justification in withholding their names.

 

“Naming the players was absolutely necessary as there was a need to be transparent and accountable not just to our stakeholders but also to the public.

 

“We also note SNOC’s view that it has jurisdiction over the nine players given that they were representatives of Team Singapore at the SEA Games. Much as we respect the desire of the SNOC in handling the disciplinary process, FAS has an equal right to consider and to put its disciplinary process in motion as well.

 

“The FAS remains committed to working together with the SNOC on this matter in order to find a resolution that is satisfactory to all parties.”

 

– FAS spokesperson