Former Sailors CEO Chew Chun-Liang named as the new FAS general secretary

SINGAPORE - After his appointment as the new general secretary of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) was announced on Sept 13, former Lion City Sailors chief executive officer Chew Chun-Liang is gearing up to start his new role in November. Chew is expected to bring his wealth of experience to the organization and hit the ground running.

But the 48-year-old is confident that he can steer Singapore football forward.

The Straits Times had reported on Sept 5 that Chew would start work in November to replace outgoing general secretary Yazeen Buhari, which the FAS confirmed in a media statement three days before its annual congress on Sept 16.

Yazeen, who has held the post for more than six years, will be stepping down on Sept 30 to join his family in Malaysia.

Chew is serving notice as deputy chief at the Agency for Integrated Care’s (AIC) care systems integration division.

Thanking the FAS executive committee for the appointment, he committed to continue “the changes that are being implemented in the ecosystem”.

Chew added: “This is also what I worked on at the Sailors, and my time at Mattar Road has helped me gain a deeper understanding of the fraternity.

“It is clear to me that football holds a special place in the hearts of Singaporeans, in the conversations that I’ve had with stakeholders of the sport, I’m confident that I will be able to contribute to steering the organisation in the direction that Bernard (Tan, FAS president), the FAS council, and Singaporeans want football to head towards.

“I will be building atop a foundation that Yazeen helped lay, and I hope to continue the good work in a manner that will see Singapore football grow even more in the years ahead.”

The FAS general secretary is responsible for day-to-day operations, implementation of strategies and policies, and the hiring of department heads.

Sources had told ST that candidates within and outside the sports fraternity were considered before Chew’s appointment.

They include Lenard Pattiselanno, a senior director at the National Volunteer And Philanthropy Centre, and Sport Singapore’s former director of national sports association partnership and business partnership.

But Tan believes he has hired the right man for the job.

He said in the statement: “His proven leadership across diverse fields including his distinguished service with the AIC and his time at Lion City Sailors positions him as the ideal candidate to lead FAS at this critical juncture.

“Chun-Liang understands the challenges we have before us. Given his previous work in football, he knows the stakeholders and is familiar with the issues. We expect him to make a running start in guiding the FAS under his watch.”

Chew was appointed Sailors CEO in December 2020, the year they became Singapore’s first privatised football club.

They won their first, and to date only, SPL title in 2021, and a year later opened a $10 million training centre in Mattar Road.

He left the club in December 2022 to return to the AIC’s Silver Generation Office, where he previously had a two-year stint as its director of operations.

Before that, he spent 22 years with the Republic of Singapore Navy, where he held the rank of colonel and was commander of the Naval Military Expert Institute from 2015 to 2018.

On his LinkedIn page, he describes himself as a highly adaptable individual, a people person, and someone who “strongly believes in showing gratitude and paying back to the society through serving in the community we live in” and “whose principle is to see everyone in his team succeed”.

Among his listed key achievements were operationalising new capabilities in the military, rolling out nation-wide healthcare outreach operations for seniors and “establishing new frontiers with the Sailors”.

BG Tampines Rovers chairman Desmond Ong had earlier told ST that he found Chew to be “very professional and highly competent when he was at the Sailors”, adding: “He has big shoes to fill and we hope to be able to support him.”