Government’s support to Team Singapore athletes

1031. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth for each of the last three years (a) what was the sum total of direct payments to athletes, including CPF top-ups, under the spexScholarship, spexPotential, spexTAG, spexGLOW and spexEducation schemes; (b) how many athletes received these payments; and (c) what was the median annual cash payment received by each athlete.

Response:

1.           Our athletes have done well, as seen in the last few editions of the Olympics, Paralympics, Asian Games, Asian Para Games and most recently at the SEA Games in Thailand.

 2.           The Government invests in various areas to build up a strong High-Performance Sport (or HPS) system, in order to develop our athletes to their fullest potential.

a.   First, direct financial and programme support to athletes through our suite of Sport Excellence (or spex) programmes. We design such support to be bespoke and holistic, based on our athletes’ needs during different stages of their sporting career. Today, we support more than 1,500 carded athletes across 55 sports, compared to 272 athletes across 14 sports when we first started SPEX in 1993. This is a 450% increase in the number of athletes we support and 300% increase in the number of sports.

b.   We have enhanced our spex programmes in recent years. We introduced the spexPotential programme in 2024, enhancing support for younger athletes making the transition to higher levels of sporting success. Last year, we awarded our inaugural batch of spexEducation Undergraduate Scholarships, providing greater assurance for our athletes’ academic aspirations. We also introduced CPF top-ups for spexScholars, bolstering their finances as they focus single-mindedly on sport.

c.   Second, systemic investment in our HPS ecosystem. We invest in coaching development, sport science and sport medicine, and athlete life management to give our National Sports Associations (or NSAs), coaches and athletes the competitive edge. Our NSA leaders and administrators play a key role, and we partner them to provide our athletes, coaches and officials the training and competition exposure they need.

d.   The support that each athlete or sport receives is calibrated according to their needs, performance and potential to do well. This support is also reviewed annually to ensure adequacy and accountability. Therefore, we do not encourage focusing only on our financial payments to athletes, or on comparisons across sports and across time, without understanding the context specific to each athlete or sport.

e.   Third, we will continue to invest in the hardware, through the new home of Team Singapore, which will bring the Singapore Sports School (or SSP) to Kallang and integrate all elements of the HPS ecosystem under one roof – sport science and sport medicine support, national training centres and sport administration.

3.          The Government will continue to review our policies and programmes for our athletes and for the HPS ecosystem. But we cannot achieve our ambitions alone. Alongside the Government’s efforts and commitment, we encourage corporate partners and Singaporeans to come together and support our athletes, whether through donations to the One Team Singapore Fund, or other means.