Jeanne Conceicao
Research Fellow
Institute of Policy Studies

Agu Casmir was a footballer of Nigerian citizenship who was wooed by Singapore's football fraternity to play the game in Singapore. In 2002, he signed with Singapore-League (S-League) club, Woodlands Wellington, with a salary of $2000 a month. After an impressive scoring of twenty-six goals in twenty-nine Singapore-League matches in his debut season, he was earmarked for Singapore citizenship under Project Rainbow, also known as the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme (FSTS), a scheme implemented by the Singapore government in 1993. FSTS conferred Singapore citizenship to eligible foreign sporting talents so that they might represent the country overseas. Agu Casmir was not the first to be conferred citizenship under the Scheme. Several had gone before him both in football as well as in other sports.

He continued to perform well in the 2003 S-League season, scoring fifteen goals. He was awarded Singapore citizenship in October 2003 and was selected to be part of the Singapore South-East Asian (SEA) Games team. He was hailed to be "a boost" for Singapore's hopes in the Games. However, he did not participate in the Games. A groin injury prevented him from doing so.

In 2004, he joined the Young Lions, and scored twenty-four goals, finishing second in S-League's top-scorers' chart. He was drafted into the Tiger Cup squad and helped the Lions reach the finals.

In 2005, he scored in Tiger Cup's second leg at the National Stadium as the country lifted the Cup in January 2005. He became Singapore's top scorer with six goals.

But it was downhill for Agu Casmir soon after the SEA Games.

He suffered a series of injuries (perhaps stemming from his groin injury) and did not play the full 2005 S-League season. He scored just seven goals for the Young Lions. This was a far cry from the twenty-six goals he scored when he first arrived in Singapore just three years before. His poor showing persisted up to the November 2005 SEA Games. He returned to Singapore without a goal to his name and Singapore crashed out in the group stages. He was dropped from the 2006 Asian Cup team.

Casmir left for a month, claiming he was undergoing football trials in Russia, England and Canada but it was later revealed that he had signed a contract with the Indonesian team Persija in January 2006 and had received a US$20,000 (S$32,000) sign-on fee. The public was understandably unhappy with Agu Casmir's actions and the incident drew much reaction from the public. Some were disappointed while others were angry. A few were sympathetic. The discussion and debate grew with every passing day that Casmir went missing. All reacted with shock and surprise at the turn of events, but Casmir still had not turned up.

The newspapers declared the footballer "missing" and reported he was un-contactable when visits to his home did not yield results. The Football Association of Singapore reported that it had not been informed of Casmir's intention to leave although they acknowledged that they had released his International Transfer Certificate (ITC) to the Indonesians. The Indonesians were reported to have been shocked at the behaviour of the Singapore player. They said: "It was the last thing we expected of a Singaporean."

After going missing for more than a month, Casmir returned to Singapore on 24 February 2006. He claimed he was in Canada, England and Russia for trials. What about the US$20,000 sign-on fee from the Indonesian Club? Agu claimed that the money was given to his family in Nigeria to settle a housing problem.

Within a few weeks of his returning, it was decided that he would play for Woodlands Wellington instead of the Indonesian club. The Club signed him on for a one-year contract and paid the sign-on fee Casmir took from the Indonesians so that his ITC could be released. In a way, the amount was deducted from his salary because in the new contract he would be paid a $1000 salary instead of a $2,000 salary. As a result of his behaviour, Casmir was fined S$20,000 by the FAS and suspended from the Singapore National team for a year.

Commentary

On the surface, football as a sport seems to be all about the skill of the sport and about having fun with the game. From the analysis of the Agu Casmir incident, it is certainly about more than just how skilfully you can kick a ball into the goal. For example, Agu Casmir's meandering rendezvous in Indonesia and later in Canada and so on were his attempts to increase his value as a football player, after having been cut from the Singapore national team. As a Singapore citizen who was not under contract with a Singapore club or the national team, he was perfectly within his rights to sign with a foreign club. In fact, upon the request of the Indonesian Club, FAS released his ITC to Persija, the Indonesian club. The problem arose because he failed to meet his agent at the airport for his scheduled flight to Jakarta on 16 January 2006 so that he might begin training. Another example was when the Indonesian Club expressed shock at what they perceived as a dishonest Singaporean ‘running off' with the lump sum payment made out to him. It was, more likely than not, a desperate attempt by the Indonesian Club to sully the reputation of the island state so as to arm twist it into helping them secure their money back from the wayward 21-year-old. If that was indeed the case, they succeeded.

And that seems to be the crux of the issue; that it is about money and foreign footballers do travel to where the money is so much so that the football landscape seems to be fast changing to one in which there are massive migrations between football associations and clubs around the world. The 2000 season saw almost 15,000 men and women being transferred from football clubs and associations belonging to one country to clubs and associations belonging to other countries around the world. The numbers are more likely to increase rather than decrease as globalisation seizes the world and players hungry for a better life use football to lift them from their depressed economic conditions.

The question is, with the high level of circulation, can Singapore afford to play the same game as countries that can afford these footballers? Can we afford to (or do we want to) view citizenship at such a functional basis, which has implications and problems of its own? The foreign footballers tend to cost a lot and in the end might not fulfil our objectives for awarding them citizenship in the first instance. Going forward, it would be instructive for Singaporeans and the Government to pay closer attention to and better manage our local football ecosystem (and perhaps sports in general).

This case study was presented at a youth forum organised by the National Youth Council last year.