IT WAS an issue that was so controversial that it elicited responses from human rights groups as well as sports fans, in a story that was heard around the world.
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Professional footballers in Singapore, brought here from Africa and playing for S-League club Sporting Afrique, were taking home an average of $100 a month in salaries, after their employers had deducted almost $1,500 for food and lodging. The Today exclusive, which appeared on June 7, also pointed out that 22 players were crammed in one house at Seletar Hills and fed a monotonous menu of rice and chicken.
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But happily, after two weeks of hard work by various parties including the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), the standoff between the aggrieved players and the club has been resolved.
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After a meeting over the weekend between the FAS, the players and club management, the players have accepted a new deal, which will now increase their monthly take-home salary from $100 to about $600 a month. They will also be entitled to earn up to $1,000 a month on a new bonus system, depending on their results. The club will also be sourcing for two more houses for the players to live in till the season ends, with catered meals thrown in.
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FAS president, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee, said: "It is a good outcome. The club addressed the players' grievances and can now move on and concentrate on the football. Sporting Afrique have some very good players and have added a new dimension to the S-League with their blend of football."
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The club had joined Singapore's professional league at the start of this season, with players hailing mostly from Kenya, Cameroon and Nigeria. All had signed contracts with the club, promising them $1,600 a month in salaries. But the club also deducted $1,500 of that money for food and accommodation, as the players had signed a separate contract with the club authorising the deductions.
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The report sparked massive public reaction, with many condemning the club for "exploiting" its players. The story received worldwide attention, with the BBC and other major newspapers reporting the issue as an abuse of player rights.
Social and political issues related to Singapore and the South East Asia region. A blog which attempts to do so in a non-trivial manner treating opposing views with the respect they deserve. Contributions are welcomed from all regardless of your political persuasion.
19 Jun 2006
Sporting agree to pay players more, offer better accommodation and meals
From TODAYonline:
The contracts are fair and just. No coercion was used to get players to sign.
ReplyDeleteWhat are these "human rights" wankers on about?
By interfering they might be preventing someone from getting out of that shithole continent—Africa— and at least get a chance to improve their lives.
Matilah is uttering the usual crap, the contracts were legal naybe. My third world friend, Singapore is always happy to use slave labour, look at maids and workers from Bangladesh etc.
ReplyDeleteStop walking about with your head up your anus, imagine what the first world thinks of our antics.
Unfortunately most of these African players are pretty poor. That club chairman, a chinese of course hopes to make a few bucks out of a bunch of Africans who have just fallen out of the trees.
As another anzac tourists attempting to combat the lack of singapore courtesy, and third world ways. I am very sorry for those African socce. Howeverm they shoud have been warned about singapore's habit of bending the rules. the island glorifies in ripping off outsiders like these african sportsmen.however, sthere is one sother point I wish to make. Today reading through the Straits Tismes forum, I made a note of a aletter from Ausssie Bill Toppin, co9mmending about singaporeans lack of courtesy in the theatre and also in traffic queues on the causeway.
ReplyDeleteOf course he wad disgustyed by the continual sms activities, sniffing and probably farting, because your people who seem to possess loose bowls.
Queue jumping on the causeway is easily remedied. Here in Sydney, I would jump out of my car, and punch the lights out of the bastard who cut me up. The police would of course observe my activities but sit back and laugh.
"All had signed contracts with the club, promising them $1,600 a month in salaries. But the club also deducted $1,500 of that money for food and accommodation, as the players had signed a separate contract with the club authorising the deductions"
ReplyDelete"FAS president, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee, said: "It is a good outcome."
This is true EXPLOITATION! Obviously, trying to take advantage of 3rd world country men. So, heartless.
Even four players were to share and rent a 4-room flat (partially or fully furnished) would cost about max $1200 - on average, one pays about $300 - 350 (incl PUB bills). For food, assume $25 per day for 3 meals - $750. Total $1100 per month. Allowance - $200 - $300 per month. So, total is about $1300-1400 p.m.
A contract might be right in legal terms, but that doesn’t meant it would be ethical or exploitation should be allowed just because people could find loophole to make an exploitation legal.
ReplyDeleteI find it rather sad that there are still people in our supposed first world world class nation, who are so oblivious of the importance of human rights and why we need them. No wonder some would refer us Singaporeans as a group of peasants rather than a citizen of a supposed developed and democratic nation.
As an English tourist and avid blogger reader, I have just toured this Island after a three week visit.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me you are nos were nedar first world with the sights I came across, ancient ladies and crippled old men wheeling junk around the the roads attempting to earn a few dollars. Decrepid blocks of apartment, we would condem in my city. Away from the city centre, Singaporfe stinks of utter poverty.
And reading copies of your local Straights Times, the government mouthpiece,it's boast, boast, boast, you claim to be the hub of the world, and hub of hubs.
Look at yourself from an outsiders point of view, you are a bloody joke, with cowardice thrown in.
yes, while we have the old wheeling junk around trying to earn some money, we don't have an health care system that is on the verge of failing, that is providing antiquated medical services, a collapsing education system that can hardly keep up with the depends and hence producing students with dropping standards, we don't have beggars outside every supermarket going, 'spare some change, guv' nor do we have streets lined with homeless, nor escalating crime rates.
ReplyDeleteyes. there are things that are wrong in Singapore. but that's the case everywhere. we just have different problems.
now. firstly, while i agree it is devious that the club owners did what they did, let us not forget that that's the same stunt that Americans did to the Chinese.
and i wouldn't say that the disgrace of the management of one football club should be extended to the entire nation.
touche renchOO, take a look in your own back yard, thousands of fiflthy HBD apartments, with no water, no power or water crammed with poverty stricken Singaporeans too poor to pay power bills because they are forced to work for virtual slave labour wages.
ReplyDeleteThousands of children dying of Asthma because their parents are release the exact figures becqause they do not wish to frighten tourists or international companies planning to move to the Island.
Scores of beggers and whores working Orchard Road.
Come on friend, don't try to hide behind a PAP style of propaganda, replace your pebble thick glasses and take a real look at the Island.
Of course there are things very right, but to an outsider, Singapore still remains very third world.
Finally, you all boast about the new Regis complex with the multi million dollar apartments. A home truth.
Take a look at this perspective, and another example of Singapore boasting. You pay more for an thousand square feet apartment with three bedrooms on the edge of the river Thames in Docklands London for the cost of just one luxury four thousand square feet luxury Regis flat.
If S-League consist of teams with youngsters from Africa instead of Singaporeans, we might just as well close down the league. What is the point when there is more entertainment in going to a circus? This particular Africa team seems to be pure business venture by the Chinese boss, I'm sure he doesn't know one end of a football from the other.
ReplyDeleteanonymous:
ReplyDeletestop asserting. just take a walk around Singapore, see whether there are any unsightly beggars on the streets? definitely not as many as in London. you talk about whores, there are scores of them in London. if you want to talk about asthma rates, i assure you, it's far higher in UK than in Singapore. homeless rate in UK higher than in Singapore.
what you have brought up are just problems that exist everywhere, not just in Singapore. i don't deny that Singapore has problems. but the problems we have aren't out of the ordinary. we acknowledge them, try to solve them. but we shall not be put down because we have these problems. cos there aren't any states in the world without its own set of problems.
so what if Singapore seems third world to an 'outsider'? to me, UK is third world, rife with inefficiency, slackers, loafers, scowsers, yobbles. and we didn't have to massacre anyone (remember what the British did to the Indians?), artificially depress global prices to protect our own producers (a la CAP) to get where we are.
point being: thanks for showing us where we can improve. yes, we know we can improve. and there are people who are working to develop Singapore. but if all you can do is criticise, then please go home and criticise about your own 'Third World' nation.
To anonymous who says "maybe" to the legality of the contracts.
ReplyDeleteAre these African players forced to sign?
Of course not.
Voluntary action my friend. By getting in their way you penalise theses talented young men from improving their lot.
The free market is far more benevolent than any state-enforced system of "human rights" can ever be.
ranch00 my friend check your facts, england third world, i do not think so. London is in the tip three financial centres of the world, singapore is around number fifteen.
ReplyDeletegranted ek has asthma, howe4fger, the kids receive free medical treatment, in singapore the kids of the poorer families are allowed to die because their mums and dads cannot afford the costs of medicine.
England has a history of more than two thousand years. Singapore was little more than shit hole forty years ago.
FAS president, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee could house them at IMH. The menu may still be just as monotonous, but it's not crammed, and it's also breezy and the fans is good. But it's strip-search day in day out.
ReplyDelete