Peter Lim - New Owner of Valencia

Peter Lim has done Singapore proud.  He is now the owner of Valencia football club.  I know that this is probably already stale news but it is a moment to be savoured nonetheless.  How many Singaporeans do you know that actually own football clubs?

I think it is rather good publicity for Singapore since many Europeans probably do not even know where Singapore is.  And what better way to gain some publicity than to own one of their very own football clubs.

Anyway, Peter Lim had previously made a bid for Liverpool.  That deal did not come to pass so I was thinking that this deal might also not come through.  Glad that it did come through in the end.

For those who don't know Peter Lim, he used to be a stock remisier who made it big in the Singapore stock market.  He married an ex-actress, Cherie Lim.  Believe he also has a daughter, Kim Lim, who is 22 years old and is currently studying in Singapore Institute of Management.  Recall reading in the news that his family stays in an entire 11 storey condominium tower around the Orchard area.

For those who don't know, Peter Lim is also said to be quite active in charity work.  His involvement in the local football scene also saw the SOF-Peter Lim Charity Cup (an exhibition fundraiser match) held in 2013.

Wishing him the very best of success in his ownership of Valencia.

Bill Ng Rangers Bid

Glad to read in the newspaper about a Singaporean, Bill Ng, who made a bid for Rangers football club and is now in the running again to buy the club despite earlier suggestions that he was out of the race. Reminds me of Peter Lim, the billionaire who was also bidding for Liverpool football club sometime back.

Bill Ng apparently does not love football.  He came to the game for the love of his two sons who had to teach him the offside rule.  Not new to purchasing football clubs, Mr Ng had also purchase Hougang United and Tiong Bahru United in 2010 and 2005 respectively.  Both these football clubs are in the S-League (Singapore's version of the English Premier League).

Now that Bill Ng is back in the running to buy the Rangers, let's wish him luck.  May he do Singapore proud.

Rooney, Manchester United and Job Loyalty

So Wayne Rooney has been having a poor form lately in football. This was after his dismal World Cup performance earlier in the year. Then some news came out that he had an affair while his wife was pregnant. To make things worse, his form on the pitch did not improve and he was left on the bench for many games. For some of the games, he was not even considered for the bench.

Now, the latest news is that Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney are going their separate ways. After some weeks of denying that Rooney wants to leave, newspapers today reported that Wayne Rooney had asked to leave Manchester United. That's after he had spent almost 6 years at United since moving over from Everton. Job loyalty? Just throw it out of the window. Here comes the mercenary. Well, at least that's how the newspapers were reporting it.

Come on.

Who amongst us dares to say that we have sticked with one company for 6 years? Most people don't even practice job loyalty nowadays yet when soccer players want to change clubs, we suddenly call them mercenaries and blast them for being selfish, money-faced and what nots.

This is incredible considering that many people today do not even stick with a company for 6 years! Most people I know have only been with their company for less than 4 years. In fact, it seems common for people to change companies ever so frequently nowadays. Job loyalty? It seems that people nowadays are no longer loyal to only a certain company. After all, no company today dares to promise its employees lifelong employment. What they can guarantee is lifelong employability and not lifelong employment.

Considering that soccer players have only such a short career span, it definitely makes sense for them to eke out the best opportunities for themselves before they hit the "official" retirement age of 35. To be left on the bench for a season is almost akin to loosing your work experience for like 10% of your working life.

Job loyalty certainly does not exist in work outside football so why do we expect this kind of standards from footballers. Give Rooney a break.

Peter Lim - Almost Liverpool Owner.

So the news is out. Peter Lim withdrew his offer for Liverpool after its owners did not revert back on his better offer than New England Sports Ventures (NESV). And NESV are now the proud new owners of Liverpool which just lost 2-0 to Everton. Liverpool now stands at the 2nd last in the English Premier League and are in the relegation zone. Of course, it is still way to early in the season to tell.

I guess it is really a pity that our very own Singaporean billionaire did not get the chance to be the owner of Liverpool FC. Imagine the limelight it will throw on Singapore. A Singapore owner for one of the top football clubs in Europe and England! What a pity. I guess most people underestimate how such things can actually bring so much other untold benefits to Singapore.

For one, readership of this blog went skyhigh during the news of Peter Lim making an offer to buy Liverpool. My readership for this blog hit record highs for a few days consecutively. Too bad the news has died down almost as fast as it started. And I am sure many Singaporean Liverpool fans are sorely disappointed.

I guess we can only think about all the "what ifs" now.

Perhaps Manchester United next ? =)

Remisier King Peter Lim Offers $750m for Liverpool

Peter Lim had increased his bid for Liverpool to fend off US rivals. Besides offering to clear the debts of Liverpool, he is also willing to give an immediate cash injection of 40 million pounds for the football club to buy new players. His bid is also attractive as it does not require an financing.

This comes amidst a bitter court battle over the sale of Liverpool. The other two bidders are New England Sports Ventures (NESV) and Mill Financial (a US hedge fund).

Mr Lim is the son of a fishmonger and is revered in Singapore financial circles for being an extremely savvy investors. Known as the "remisier king", he amassed a large fortune and had a winning touch in various companies - the biggest being that in Wilmar International which grew from $10 million initial investment to close to $2 billion today.

He however has business relationship with Manchester United and has the sole rights to own, operate and develop a chain of the famous club's restaurants across Asia. Whether he will give up the venture remains unknown.

The fate of offer will however depend on the court battle that is currently being waged between Liverpool's owners and chairman. The Liverpool owners want to stop the sale as they claim the price is too low. If the court rules in favor of the current Liverpool American owners, the club is likely to go into administration and will lose even more points in the Premier League.

Being a savvy investor, Peter Lim certainly must know what he is doing and while English media and fans are wary of the bid, Singaporeans here are cheering that our very own local hero could potentially own one of the biggest sporting clubs in English football history. Others have however questioned whether that money could be invested in the ailing local soccer scene which would benefit in a big way from that amount.

As Andy Ho, president of the local Liverpool supporters' club says: " This will put Singapore on the world football map."

Paul the Octopus is NOT Psychic

Okay. So it managed to guess the results correctly for a number of games. But if you are starting to believe that Paul the octopus is a psychic, then you are either plain stupid or downright crazy. Paul the octopus is just an octopus looking for food in the fish tank.

The statistical odds of choosing a correct team with just 2 tanks to choose from is simply 50-50. It does not take a genius to realise that an animal has a probability of choosing the correct tank for more than 10 times in a roll. It is just statistics at play. If Paul had made a mistake earlier on, he would not be so famous. The fact that he has made so many "CORRECT" guesses is simply due to the fact that it is a 50-50 chance each time that he gets the correct answer. Paul is not psychic, he is just hungry.

If Paul was really psychic, he would be able to choose the correct team to win the world cup with all the 32 countries inside his tank. Now that would be really psychic. (You seriously think the octopus knows that the World Cup is going on????????????????) Duh.........

The same thing applies for fund managers and their investment returns. Don't be fooled by randomness. Anyone who still doubts what I say ought to read Nicholas Nassim Taleb's book Fooled by Randomness.

But of course there will be those certain few people who will still like the romantic idea that the silly octopus is really psychic and knows which team will win the World Cup.

World Cup Flops

So France bows out of the world cup together with host country South Africa. Amazingly, France lost 2-1 to South Africa. Even with their Henry and Malouda and Ribery and what nots, they were unable to even get a draw with South Africa!

In this World Cup, I guess we have witnessed what are supposedly "big" name countries struggling to beat the minnows of Asia and Africa. Is this a surprising fact? Or have we just been deluded by the European countries that they are better at football?

Afterall, we are fed regular matches of the English Premier League and stuff like Champions League with footballers like Ronaldo commanding astronomical weekly salaries. We are led to believe that these European footballers are SO GOOD that they deserve their pay and also the additional slots in the World Cup. Just look at how many slots the European teams secured in the World Cup compared to the slots Asia secured and you will understand what I mean.

But perhaps the differences between the big names and the minnows are not so great afterall. As this world cup has shown, the teams can actually be quite well matched. Even North Korea manages to lose to Brazil by just 1 goal. This goes to show that the perceived superiority of European footballers might just be a perception. While Asia, Oceania, N. America and some African nations might be latecomers to the game, they have already caught up significantly with the European counterparts. One can only wonder what it would have been like if Asia was given more slots? Perhaps, we might not see any difference between the big names and the minnows afterall.

What Happened to Goal 2010?

So world cup fever is here.

What happened to our Goal 2010 anyway? Why isn't Singapore in the World Cup yet?

Slovenia just beat Algeria like 1-0. Slovenia only has a population of 2 million and they have managed to enter the world cup twice already!

Singapore already has a population of close to 5 million but we are still nowhere closer to our dream.

I mean fine...we can be contented with being the Champions in women's ping pong and stuff but I still believe that the holy grail in sports for Singapore is the World Cup. Singaporeans are quite passionate about soccer. I can tell that from my facebook alone. I have never seen a facebook status that comments about any other sport OTHER than SOCCER. So soccer is really something that most Singaporeans are passionate about. Ping pong.....sorry....didn't cause much of a buzz on my facebook account as far as I can tell.

Why Isn't Singapore in the World Cup Yet?

I was actually lying in bed preparing to sleep when I started pondering over this question. It got me so agitated that I just had to get up and write about it (as well as catch the match between Serbia and Ghana).

Why aren't we in the world cup yet ? A small population is not an excuse...

Slovenia has been in the world cup TWICE. They only have 2 million people and since only males can play in the World Cup, I figured that they only have like 1 million males? So if Slovenia can make it to the World Cup, there is no reason why we can't do it too.

I guess the main reason is that we LACK FOCUS. We have diversified our attention to sports that have managed to reap rewards. This include table tennis and swimming. But are these sports really able to galvanise the entire nation? South Korea just reported having a few hundred thousand people gathering on the streets to cheer their nation on. If Singapore ever got into the World Cup, I am sure that will happen too. But somehow, somewhere, somebody decided that Singapore soccer was not going to make it and dropped the Goal 2010....

Let's be realistic here...counting on foreigners to help us get into the World Cup is not going to work out well. It might work for table tennis and swimming but it certainly will not work well for the World Cup. Football is a game about 11 people playing as a team. The best players in the world will never come to Singapore to play football. FULLSTOP. We need to stop relying on foreign talent and count on our local talent instead. The foreign talent strategy does not seem to be working well in football.

How to Get into the World Cup

What you are about to read from here onwards is going to sound ludicrous. It might even sound crazy. But this is coming at the height of football fever, so no suggestion should ever be treated as crazy.

We need to SEND OUR PLAYERS ABROAD for exposure and experience. That is what the South Koreans have been doing. And I think their strategy will pay off as many of their players are playing in European clubs now giving them the necessary exposure. They no longer "fear" their European counterparts as they have experience playing with them And we all know that this kind of exposure is very important especially on the big stage.

Here comes the tricky part. Big European clubs will not be willing to accept our Nor Alam Shahs and what nots...

Well, the answer is actually quite simple. We get GIC and Temasek to buy these clubs. (See, now you know that I am crazy. But just humour me for a while =) Since these clubs are treated like businesses, it will not be difficult to liquidate these holdings in the future. Who knows? We might even make a profit from selling these clubs in the future.

Based on my "pluck from the air" estimates, I figured that our reserves should be able to buy us a couple of good clubs in England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and whatever league there may be in Europe. We can also buy a few lower league clubs if they are cheaper.

The next thing will then be to sponsor teenage boys (12 years old onwards) to go on attachments to these clubs for exposure. Food, lodging, pay, etc will be sponsored by these clubs so it is a win-win situation for us. My estimate is 2-3 Singaporeans per club due to the foreigner limit that is usually in place. My guess is that we will need a good 30 to 40 players to be exposed (at any one time) to European kind level of competition to ever make it for the World Cup. Based on that figures, we might need to buy 13 to 15 clubs (with perhaps 5 clubs in the championship level kind of leagues).

There will also have to be a major revamp in the Singapore sports scene. Focus will have to be given to soccer.

This might involve eliminating sports from CCAs in schools. Let boys concentrate only on soccer. This will have to be nation wide sacrifice. These boys can join 2nd or 3rd CCAs that are not soccer if they want to. But all boys in all schools will have compulsory soccer lessons and CCA. Only if they are really bad will they be kicked out of the sport.

To incentivise it, a program can be developed such that boys who make it to the very top will be exempted from National Service, given the chance to be attached to the major clubs (that are now owned by Temasek and GIC), etc, etc. In other words, we must make it really attractive monetarily for them to want to represent Singapore at the highest level.

The S-League will also need to be revamped to ensure that the "local soccer scholars" do not lose out because of the lack of international exposure. More foreign teams should be invited to join the S-League. A super league should be created with tempting prize money. Perhaps only 2 All-Singaporean teams will be allowed while the rest will be foreign teams. This will help to ensure that the S-League is also able to churn out good players who might be late bloomers compared to the "overseas soccer scholars" who have already secured their places in the Singapore owned European clubs.

Once we do this, I am sure we are set for World Cup glory in maybe 10 years time. Goal 2020 perhaps?

Am I crazy? Perhaps.. But this idea doesn't stop me from dreaming....

Notes:

1. Our small size in population does not mean we need to rely on foreign talent in the strategy outlined above. We could have 1 or 2 foreign talent if we need to but this could be best reserved for the coaching staff.

2. We might be small in physical size. But if the Koreans and Japanese can make it, I am sure Singaporean males can do it too. Football is not really ALL about size. The Spanish footballers are also quite small in size too (1.7m tall).