Strategies and funding mechanisms for team sports development

275. Mr Lee Hong Chuang: To ask the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what strategies and funding mechanisms does the Government have in place to support team sports that may not be commercially viable but are vital for national representation, particularly the lack of facilities and resource for the development and training for the national teams.

Response:

1. The Government recognises the value that team sports bring to society. Team sports have the potential to mobilise communities, foster social bonding and inculcate values such as teamwork, camaraderie and resilience.

2. The High Performance Sport Institute (HPSI) in Sport Singapore works with and supports National Sports Associations (NSAs) and community partners, such as schools and private sport academies, to develop sports at grassroots and community levels and strengthen athlete development pathways towards elite sport, including team sports.

3. In addition, HPSI provides grants to more than 50 NSAs to defray the operating costs for facilities, pathway development and high-performance programmes to support our national teams’ training and development.  We guide NSAs to fulfil the requirements for obtaining Charity status – a key prerequisite to be considered for funding support and to receive donations.

4. HPSI also works closely with the NSAs to provide the best daily training environment for our national athletes. NSAs have priority in booking Sports Hub and ActiveSG facilities for national team training.  Athletes from both individual and team sports benefit from various training grants and support schemes under the Sport Excellence (spex) framework that support them throughout their sporting journey and transition to life after sport.

5. Take netball as an example. Netball Singapore (NS) receives annual facility grants for their National Training Centre (NTC) and administrative office. HPSI has been working closely with NS to ensure that their new NTC at the Toa Payoh Integrated Development from 2029 onwards will support their needs. Our national and Under-21 netballers receive sports science and specialist support from HPSI. Examples include fitness testing, as well as game analysis using data. Under the spex framework, 6 netball athletes have benefited from the spex Grant for Loss of Wages (spexGLOW), a financial assistance scheme for spexCarded athletes who opt to train full-time for up to 12 months in preparation for a Major Games. This gives our netballers greater assurance to focus on their preparation for SEA Games 2025 in December.

6. Beyond Government support, we encourage fellow Singaporeans to support our athletes’ development through contributions to the One Team Singapore Fund which the Government matches dollar-for-dollar.