The Sports Hub cometh... soon

Talk about being late. The Sports Hub won't be ready in time for the 2013 SEA Games because of repeated delays due to funding woes.

Originally, the idea was to host this major sporting event using the new 55,000-seater National Stadium with the retractable roof.

And being the gracious country that Singapore is, we are offering our Southeast Asian neighbors a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take the hosting 2013 SEA Games off our hands.

We have been told that the Sports Hub, a replacement for the National Stadium, is being developed using a PPP approach. No, it does not stand for People-Patience-Please but Public-Private Partnership. This means a private consortium will raise funds to build it, and the Government pays the consortium annually for the facilities when they are operational.

The Sports Hub's completion date was pushed back several times, from 2011 to 2012 to 2013. This is way beyond even the Mayan calendar.

The reason for the delay has been attributed to the global financial crisis. As we all know, the global financial crisis is also responsible for the US banks needing a bailout, massive loss of jobs, and Tiger Woods crashing his SUV.

I would like to appeal to my readers to be understanding and patient. As we have been told by the authorities, many PPP projects around the world faced similar funding difficulties.

Whom among us have not been in a situation where we had to tell our teacher, "'Cher! We had a global financial crisis of unprecedented scale and it made us late in submitting our homework! Look, other classes also could not finish their homework on time! Give chance lah, 'Cher!"

And of course, our 'Cher nodded with kind understanding and proceeded to cane our tiny behinds anyway.

I think we can still host the 2013 SEA Games though. Just in case our SEA neighbors pass up on this golden chance to host this prestigious gig (any takers, anyone? Last call...).

We can raise funds to help the consortium by hosting a few more Last Matches in the old National Stadium. I propose naming the sporting events the "Field of Dreams" series.

Sports fans can look forward to the Field of Dreams World Cup Qualifier, the Field of Dreams Rugby Sevens, and the Field of Dreams National Inter-school Three-legged Race cum Parents' Day Picnic.

I tell you, folks will pay top dollar to attend all these Last of the Last National Stadium events. Then we take that money to complete the Sports Hub.

If that does not raise the money needed, we can have a National betting pool. Punters can put down money to guess when the Sports Hub will be completed. 2013? 2020? The next Millennium?

Special bonus pay-outs will go to those who place side bets on things like what other international sporting events we may need to forgo because of the delays.

And if all that fund-raising fails, I suggest we seek China's help. China is trying to find some significant events for their Olympic stadium, the Bird's Nest. So far, they have hosted an Italian football match, a Jackie Chan concert, and an opera by Zhang Yimou. Not exactly a full social calendar.

Singapore can always borrow the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2013 SEA games. We can either airlift the Bird's Nest over here for the event (hey, it's a BIRD's nest, ok?) or tell our Southeast Asian neighbors to fly over to China for the SEA Games.

I am sure China will be happy to let us help them prevent the Bird's Nest from becoming a white elephant.

I know the Bird's Nest does not have a retractable roof. They gave that up to save costs. We can sell special SEA Games umbrellas to the spectators and call them Mini-Retractable Roofs. It will surely be a hit.

In fact, with the seating capacity of the Bird's Nest at 90,000, almost double that of our Akan Datang Stadium (hey, that's a great name for the new stadium, don't you think?), we can even host a Jackie Chan concert AND the SEA Games at the same time.

China, what do you think? Can borrow your Bird's Nest or not? Be a friend lah!