Changes in donation guidelines
"Donategate" dominated headlines in the lead-up to the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) election slightly over a month ago.
A $500,000 donation made from amateur National Football League club Tiong Bahru FC to the Asean Football Federation (AFF), through the FAS, led to police raids of three football clubs, as well as FAS' Jalan Besar headquarters.
With previous FAS Council members denying knowledge of the donation, the issue highlighted a lack of transparency within the national football body.
Many also questioned why such a significant sum of money generated by a local football entity was funnelled out to the AFF, instead of being used to better football in Singapore.
Yesterday, the FAS council announced a slew of steps to avoid a repeat of "Donategate".
FAS vice-president Bernard Tan, who led an ad hoc committee to look into FAS' internal governance issues, said: "For donations, anything above $50,000 is notified straightaway to the FAS exco.
"Moreover, any donation we receive must be expressly used for the benefit of the FAS and nothing else. Otherwise, we won't (accept) it."
The ad hoc committee also made recommendations to the FAS executive committee to do further work in three areas, namely widening the disclosure requirements of individuals within the FAS, calling for an external audit to assess FAS' adherence to the revised Code of Governance for Charities and working on a set of member obligations to ensure good governance in its affiliates.
- SAZALI ABDUL AZIZ
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