The SFA program was already around as part of Michel Sablon’s key pillar of FAS’ elite youth devleopment.
In 2016, 4 schools are introduced into the U15 COE league, and supposedly 8 in 2017 and 15 schools by 2018.
SFA started with St Patrick’s, St Gabriel’s, Hong Kah and Singapore Sports School.
In 2019, the U15 COE league have 15 teams but this is including academy/youth teams from the SPL clubs.
7 Schools:
Singapore Sports School U15
Meridian Secondary School U15
Jurongville Secondary School U15
St Patrick’s School U15
Serangoon Garden Secondary School U15
St Gabriel’s Secondary School U15
Seng Kang Secondary School U15
SPL COE + ActiveSG = 8 Academies:
ActiveSG U15
Tampines Rovers FC U15
Home United U15
Geylang International FC U15
Warriors FC U15
Hougang United FC U15
Albirex Niigata FC (S) U15
Balestier Khalsa FC U15
Which means, the Michel Sablon’s SFA programme failed to hit its target of 15 SFA by 2018 to play in the U15 league.
Which means Unleash The Roar is actually rehashing Michel Sablon’s idea, but downscaling it to 10 SFAs (I can’t remember if it is to expand to more schools later)
Schools selected for SFA under the UTR program are:
Currently already is a SFA:
Singapore Sports School
Sengkang
St Patrick’s
Serangoon Garden
Meridian
Jurongville
New SFA:
Montfort
Anglo-Chinese (Barker Road)
Queensway
Assumption English
Missing SFA:
St Gabriel <— which ironically was the “founding member” of the SFA concept.
—
UTR is likely to be different as the FAS’ SFA program seemed to focus mostly on U15.
The U16 league kindda operated only in 2018. There is no league table for 2019.
FAS Football Academy 16
Home United FC U16
FAS Football Academy 15
Warriors FC U16
Geylang International FC U16
Hougang United FC U16
Balestier Khalsa FC U16
Tampines Rovers FC U16
SFA West (Hong Kah Secondary School)
SFA North (Singapore Sports School)
SFA East (St. Patrick’s School)
SFA South (St. Gabriel’s Secondary School)
From the terminology, SFA NSEW seemed to indicate that the U16 league was a pilot program. The program just lasted a year it seems.
The UTR program is likely to be better because its really stupid to just have a league that operates only for 1 age group – which means the boys will only have 1 chance in that 1 year to “develop”.
Which then also begs the question: why all these SFA and academies never bothered to participate in the SingaCup to test themselves , with the exception of Hong Kah, Jurongville and Queensway???
