In 2029, Singapore will host the South-east Asian (SEA) Games for the fifth time but other major sporting events like the Asian or Commonwealth Games have yet to reach its shores.

The topic has been in the spotlight recently after Indonesia said in October that it was in discussions with Australia, Malaysia and Singapore on a joint bid for football’s 2034 World Cup, though that did not take off and Saudi Arabia emerged as the sole bidder.

The possibility of Singapore being future hosts of the Commonwealth Games was raised a month later, when the Games’ federation floated the idea during its general assembly here.

On The Straits Times’ podcast series Hard Tackle, former Sport Singapore (SportSG) chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin and Singapore Aquatics president Mark Chay speak to Deepanraj Ganesan about whether Singapore can host such major sporting events, and what events it should target.

This is an excerpt from their discussion.

Q: Can sport now be viewed (globally) as one of the main movers of tourism?

Lim Teck Yin: The (Singapore Tourism Board) takes a very hard-nosed approach to look at whether an investment in a sporting event will bring the sort of inbound visitorship as well as shore up Singapore’s reputation as a destination city. And it is a fact that it will be.

You really need to do the homework in marketing it overseas. You need to really analyse the attractiveness of such an event... you need to maintain a certain rhythm and consistency of bringing it back. It’s not just a one-off event that you can afford to host.

So we’re doing the World Aquatics Championships, but subsequent to that, there’ll be more aquatic events.

Q: Can Singapore ever host the Asian Games or a World Cup?

Lim: Any country or city that wants to host these events must think about its policy objectives very carefully to see whether that would align. And if Singapore did decide to do so, our facilities would be up to scratch and would be sufficient for such an event.

I was just in Jakarta and witnessed the Under-17 Fifa World Cup. They’re hosting it in four stadia. The capacity levels that are required for that, in a matter of the next decade, Singapore will have those.

We will have the National Stadium, we’ve got NS Square. We’ve got the new Toa Payoh Stadium and we can easily provide capability for another stadium if we wanted to.

I was at an Under-17 Cup match between France and South Korea. The official attendance rate for that was at about the 8,000 mark. So that’s well within our capability.

Mark Chay: We do have facilities and when it comes to hosting events with Singapore, one thing that we are really good at is looking at the resources that we have, (and) thinking innovatively how we can actually host it, because, we don’t have the luxury of 100,000-seater arenas.

We also don’t have a lot of the other sporting arenas, but what we have are multi-use sports arenas where we can easily convert them.

A good example was the Olympic Esports Week. And a lot of people were blown away. We had 10 different e-sports, whether it’s virtual simulator sports, console sports, PC sports, all done on a single stage.

Lim: If Singapore is ever a part of a consortium of countries that are standing up to bid for a particular event, of course, we will be able to do our part.

And we’ve recently seen the Basketball World Cup being hosted across three countries, including two Asean countries. So we do have the infrastructure and facilities (for the Fifa World Cup), but (we have) to do it together with our Asean neighbours.

Q: How can Singapore be a more attractive proposition for major sporting events?

Chay: Singapore would like to host major Games that our athletes can actually do well in. Because at the end of the day, we want to inspire and we need to grow our local heroes.

My second point (is that) Singaporeans need to show up. We can’t just rely on foreigners to fly into Singapore and buy tickets.

An event that really has done very well is F1 (but) we need multiple examples to keep the calendar robust and attract people to come to Singapore to live and play as well.

Lim: There will be a mix of events where Singapore athletes will feature prominently. And other opportunities to hold world-class events where our local athletes may not.

So you would still like to see world-class football come to Singapore, even though the national football team will not be playing.

But as costs escalate, as properties are expensive, Singapore will have to be quite circumspect about the calibre of events and whether there is an economic return.