Bidding for a lion's share: Singapore's Olympic medal aspirations through the Foreign Sporting Talent Scheme

Abstract

As the country that currently provides the highest cash pay-out for an Olympic gold medal (Soh, 2013), it is clear that Singapore’s government is committed to pushing for greater excellence in sports. However, in a small island state where participation rather than excellence has tended to be the function of sport, this objective appears problematic. A controversial scheme used to overcome this is the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme (FSTS), a sports labour migration innovation. This article discusses the scheme and contextualizes it in light of Singaporean government sports policy over the past two decades. It is argued that despite some public dissatisfaction, the Singapore government’s objective to augment its Olympic medal capacity will lead to continuance, if not augmentation, of the programme. It is thus clear that tension between the PAP and Singaporean citizens will continue to grow unless a more efficient system for identifying and developing the local sporting talent pool is developed.