Singapore World Cup dream can become reality

Singapore will likely never play in the World Cup, but fans and officials keep hoping the Lions will one day make it.

Iceland, with a population roughly one-eighth of Singapore’s, reached the World Cup finals in 2018. Singapore has about 3.2 million citizens.

Some argue that should be enough to field a competitive squad of 25 to 30 players. They point to small nations like Cape Verde and Iceland as examples.

Small nations, big dreams — and the limits of comparison

Comparing Singapore to these countries misses the point. They have deep football cultures. Singapore does not have a serious sports culture at the grassroots level.

This gap won’t be closed by wishful thinking alone. Attracting foreign talent and granting citizenship has been tried. France used that approach to win the 1998 World Cup.

Singapore’s efforts have produced limited results, with few foreign-born players reaching world-class standards. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has suggested the 2030 World Cup could expand from 48 to 64 teams.

That would increase the chances for nations that have never qualified. The path remains steep. There are positive signs, though.

The Unleash the Roar project, a national initiative by the Football Association of Singapore, aims to qualify for the World Cup by 2034. Billionaire entrepreneur Forrest Li, the current FAS president, has pledged S$50 million for long-term development.

The Lions also qualified on merit for the next Asian Cup, to be held in Saudi Arabia in January 2027. That’s a first. However, ambition alone doesn’t build a team.

A country that treats football as a secondary sport, where youth leagues are thin and professional standards lag behind regional peers, cannot simply will itself onto the global stage.

Forrest Li’s investment is real — but money alone won’t fix a culture that doesn’t prioritize the game from childhood. The Football Association of Singapore needs to focus on developing a strong football culture.

A joint bid to host — and maybe play

Perhaps the most realistic path is not qualifying on merit but hosting the tournament. South-east Asian governments could explore a joint bid for the 2038 World Cup.

The hosts for 2030 and 2034 are already set. The region has never hosted the event since 1930, except for Japan and South Korea in 2002. They successfully co-hosted the tournament.

Indonesia, which qualified as the Dutch East Indies in 1938, came closest to making the 2026 competition. Thailand is currently the highest-ranked South-east Asian nation at 94th in the FIFA rankings.

A joint bid with five or six countries, including Singapore, could work. The proposal would reserve at least two slots for South-east Asia if the tournament stays at 48 teams, or three if it expands to 64. This is a mixed economic situation.

Singapore has won the Asean Championship four times but has never won a gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games, a drought stretching nearly 70 years.

That gap shows how far the national team still has to go. A lot of work is needed to give FAS and the national team time to build a squad of decent players, including top-class foreign talent.

If the Lions can’t qualify for the 2038 World Cup, the next best thing would be to host matches at the National Stadium. Gianni Infantino once said, “When you organise a World Cup, it’s important that you organise it for the whole world…every nation should be able to dream of taking part in the World Cup.”

That line should give FAS plenty to think about as it plans its next move. For now, the dream remains alive — but it needs more than hope to become real. The US and China are also in a space race to put AI in space.