Sporting Afrique FC

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Sporting Afrique FC
Sporting Afrique FC.png
Full nameSporting Afrique Football Club
Nickname(s)The Flamingos
Founded2006
Dissolved2007
GroundYishun Stadium
Yishun, Singapore
Capacity3,700

Sporting Afrique Football Club was a professional football club which played in Singapore's S.League in 2006. The team was made up not of Singaporeans, but of players of African descent. Its squad consisted of players from Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Ghana.[1] The club finished in 9th place out of 11 teams in the S.League in the 2006 season. They were involved in a number of off-field controversies, and their application to participate in the S.League again in 2007 was rejected by the FAS.[2] The club played its home games at the Yishun Stadium.

In allowing Sporting Afrique to join the league, the S.League hoped that their involvement would make the competition more exciting, and possibly unearth some good players who might be able to change their nationality to Singaporean and thus play for the Singapore national football team (as Nigerian-born Agu Casmir and Itimi Dickson had done).

In June 2006, it was reported that, while the players had been promised monthly salaries of S$1,600 (~US$1,000), they only received S$100 a month (~US$60), as S$700 was deducted for food (reportedly a monotonous diet of rice and chicken), and S$800 for accommodation despite all 22 team members living 5 or 6 per room in the same house in an area where a typical house rental was around S$3,000. Their contracts also forbade talking to the media, but team members contacted the BBC anonymously, drawing international attention. Club president Collin Chee, who had initially claimed to be "not short-changing any of them", eventually backed down and agreed to raise their salaries to S$600, with performance bonuses and better housing.[3]

Seasons[]

Season Pos P W D L F A Pts Singapore Cup
2006 9th 30 5 9 16 36 58 24 Preliminary

Notable players[]

[4]

 Cameroon
 Ghana
 Kenya
 Nigeria
 Singapore
  • (originally of Nigerian nationality)

Coach[]

  • Singapore (2006 – 2007)

President[]

  • United Kingdom Collin Chee (2006 – 2007)[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Rutherford, Peter (19 January 2007). "Sporting gives Africans chance to shine in S'pore". Reuters. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  2. ^ Tan, Kenneth (10 March 2019). "Turning full circle: Family man Collin Chee opens up on abrupt departure from Singapore football and coming back with Dads for Life". JupiterFutbol. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  3. ^ "Hopes dashed in Singapore". BBC Sports. 14 June 2006. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  4. ^ Sporting Afrique Football Club - World Soccer Stats Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Thomas Biketi’s Sporting Afrique set to disband Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine
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