Tanjong Pagar United set for a new era with change in chairman and club management

SINGAPORE – After another disappointing campaign that saw the club finish bottom of the eight-team Singapore Premier League (SPL), Tanjong Pagar United will enter a new era under fresh management.

They will be led by a new chairman in local entrepreneur Rajesh Nair and a management committee that includes former Singapore national midfielder Goh Tat Chuan.

The change will take effect from July 1 with Raymond Tang, the club’s chairman since 2019, stepping down along with the rest of his management committee.

A media statement by the club on June 1 said: “This leadership transition marks the beginning of an exciting new phase for the club, with a renewed focus on football development, supporter engagement and building a strong foundation for long-term success.”

The Jaguars have endured back-to-back abject campaigns, finishing bottom in the 2024-25 and the recently concluded 2025-26 SPL seasons.

Rajesh, who is a partner and co-founder of Sport Dev, which has been running the FC Barcelona Football Academy in Singapore since 2022, told The Straits Times he was informed by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) about an opportunity for him to form a team to take on the management of the SPL club.

The 53-year-old, who has over a decade of experience working in Spain, and is the brother of current FAS council member Dinesh Nair, said: “We thought that we could actually do something positive for Singapore football.

“It’s easy to criticise from behind a desk, but we wanted to be people who would actually go out and try and do something. We are excited by the opportunity and what we want to do is to build a sustainable and professionally-run football club.”

Tanjong Pagar have been nowhere near competitive enough for a professional league, with critics pointing to their sub-standard foreign signings and a motley crew of local players.

In the recent season, they finished with just seven points from 21 games and conceded a league-high 63 goals, contributed by heavy defeats including a 6-0 drubbing by Balestier Khalsa and a 7-0 hammering by champions Lion City Sailors.

Rajesh, who started his career as an aerospace engineer before moving to the corporate world, believes his team are capable of injecting freshness to “bring back excitement to this club”.

He will lean into his and his team’s experience of building businesses across different sectors and countries, which includes turning the Barca Academy in Singapore from a small outfit with around 80 children at a single venue into a multi-site operation, involving about 1,600 children across four venues, in just four years.

Planning for the 2026-27 season that is set to commence in September is already under way.

While he declined to reveal if there will be changes to the coaching staff – led by head coach Noh Alam Shah – and which players he is eyeing, he said: “What I can tell you is that we are looking at some very exciting people, players that have done well in the league previously and national team-calibre players. And we’re already in conversation with them.”

ST understands that the players under consideration include former BG Tampines Rovers goal machine Boris Kopitovic, who is currently with Indonesian side Bali United.

The 31-year-old Montenegrin forward scored 110 goals and notched 41 assists in 138 matches for the Stags from 2020 to 2024.

Rajesh admitted that while the path ahead may not be straightforward, he is looking forward to bringing back happier days for the club’s fans.

He said: “We’re very eager to get going, and we are under no illusions that this will be easy, but I think with the right effort and the right focus, and not being afraid, whilst also looking at it from a different angle than how it has traditionally been done, will help us.”

Serving alongside Rajesh in the new management committee are several others who have also been part of the local football fraternity.

They include former Lions midfielder and 2004 Asean Football Federation Championship winner Goh, who will serve as vice-chairman; tech entrepreneur Jordi Castello, who runs the Barca Academy in Singapore alongside Rajesh; and former Tanjong Pagar player Sudhershen Hariram, who is now a lawyer.

Goh, 52, head of Asia Pacific, business development of tech company Aether Fuels, said he saw this as an opportunity to “give back to the football fraternity in whatever capacity I can”.

The former FAS council member said: “I hope to bring my experience across business development, commercial strategy, project development and energy and industrial sectors to help shape a football club built with strong values, innovation, discipline and a sustainable business model.

“I believe we can bridge corporate-world lessons to professional football.”

Adding that he is aligned with the long-term strategic vision of the assembled team, he added: “With a proven track record in developing and operating successful commercial youth academies, we share common ambition to build a football club that is sustainable and differentiated in our own unique way.”

One of the pioneer S.League clubs, Tanjong Pagar featured in the inaugural season in 1996 and lifted the Singapore Cup two years later, but had to sit out in 2005 because of money woes.

They returned in 2011 but ran into financial problems again and sat out a second time from 2015 before returning in the 2020 season under Tang’s management.

In the media statement, Tang said it has been a privilege to serve as club chairman and expressed gratitude to all who have supported the Jaguars.

He added: “I wish Rajesh and the incoming team every success, and I am confident the club has an exciting future ahead.”

Rajesh said a key aspect of his tenure will be to ensure the club is run “sustainably”.

He added: “This is not a privatisation of the club. We’re looking to build a sustainable model. Will we be putting some money into the club? The answer is yes. But we are also going to go and get some sponsors and ensure that we build the club sustainably.”