HOSTING OF WORLD SPORTING EVENT

Mr Chia Shi Teck asked the Acting Minister for Community Development (a) if Singapore will host a world sporting event like the Soccer World Cup; (b) what are the constraints in so doing; and (c) whether the constraint of size can be overcome by teaming up with our ASEAN neighbours.

Mr Abdullah Tarmugi: Singapore has been hosting a few world sports events. Examples are the World Squash Team Championship in 1989, World Formula 1 Power Boat Grand Prix in 1992 and the World Water-ski Championship in 1993.

The World Cup and the Olympics are prestigious and mega events. The bidding process is intense and expensive. Countries spend a few years and millions of dollars just to bid for the event, without any guarantee of success. Australia, for instance, spent six years and an estimated A$25 million just to bid for Olympics 2000. Many more millions of dollars will have to be spent after the bid has been won, to prepare for and stage the event.

Organising the Soccer World Cup or the Olympics is a mammoth task. For World Cup USA, more than three million spectators watched the matches in the various stadiums over a one-month period. That is roughly the population of Singapore.

From 1998, 32 countries, as against the present 24, will qualify for the Soccer World Cup finals. To complete all the matches within a 4- to 6-week period, the host country must have a minimum of eight large stadiums, each with a seating capacity of 50,000 or more. Singapore has only one stadium with more than 50,000 seats.

Even if land can be found and hotels and stadiums can be built in time, there are the empty rooms and stadiums to think about after the event. There will also be demands on the public transport system and the security forces. Given the physical size of Singapore, we must be realistic and bid for events we can accommodate.

Co-hosting would not be possible for most world sports events. The constitution of the International Olympic Committee, for example, does not allow the games to be jointly hosted by a number of countries.