Buying Gold Medals

There was once a father who had a son. There was a sporting event at his son's school. The father who was a smart man realized that his son would probably not win. Besides it detracted from the more important goals of studying for exams. The father still wanted a gold medal. So the father took some money from his son's college fund which his son had been working for - and hired someone to impersonate his son at the Sports event. That person won. The father gave the person some money and took the medal home. The father now had a gold medal to proudly hang in the dining room.

That parable just about sums up my opinion of the decision by the govt to stack the sporting teams with talented foreign born players.

True - other nations - including Australia also give citizenships to talented foreign born sports people as well. But Singapore goes over the top with this tactic of minting fresh citizens for the purpose of winning sports medals more so than other nations.

Seriously what the fuck is the point?

Its about the same as making a bunch of Germans, Russians, Maoris, and Africans into citizens so that Singapore can field a winning soccer team, ice-hockey team, rugby, or basketball team at the next international games.

The extend of their citizenship only goes so far as holding a pink IC.

Here's a question for you - What really makes a Singapore citizen Singaporean?

Instead of doing that cynical approach to sports - I think its much better to spend the nation's money on its own locally born citizens. Here are some examples:

1. Spend the money on training our sports teachers. Its highly important that our sports and physical education teachers are knowledgeable about the whole dynamics of muscle growth and training. Think of the amount of good it would do to the nation if the sports teachers were highly skilled and knowledgeable - they could teach entire generations of citizens to be more aware and conscious of their health and physical training.

Money that goes into this field also goes into creating our own Sports Industry.

2. Raise up our own sports people. Sure what for? But Singapore spends billions of dollars on its armed forces and military. I'm not saying its wasted money (sidetopic: consider how much Hong Kong govt spends on its own military.) But if Singapore is prepared to spend so much money on its own armed forces - why not devote the money used for awarding citizenships foreigners to training and sponsoring its own locally born sports people?? Each dollar spent on a Singapore born sports person also goes to his Singapore family, his parents, his children and would quite likely encourage a Singaporean child to do the same rather than swotting for the exam in an air-con room. This is Nation-building stuff.