Meet Benjamin Davis.
He might look like a typical kid playing around with a soccer ball, but he isn’t.
That’s because he’s actually signed a professional contract with Fulham Football Club. Yes, that Fulham, that English Premier League professional club.
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But his dreams might just crash on him.
How it all began
Back in Jul 2017, Davis signed a two-year scholarship deal with Fulham Football Club. He was signed as a first-year scholar at the Academy.
He’s the first Singaporean to join an English team after more than 10 years.
While Fulham itself is playing in the second-tier, it’s well-known that their Academy itself is first-rate and comparable to giants like Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Then, fast forward a year later.
Signing of his first professional contract at the age of 18
During his stint at Fulham, his stellar performance at the U-18 impressed the club so much they decided to just hand him the full deal.
One year into his scholarship, he was offered a professional contract with Fulham, which he’d gladly signed.
And the club itself has been recently promoted to play in the first tier of the English Premier League.
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Davis, of course, was thrilled.
He signed the contract immediately, and pledged to make himself a constant presence on the U-18 and U-23 matches, and hopefully get himself into the senior team.
In other words, where the big boys play.
And the future looks bright, especially as the club was impressed with how he has a 90% pass accuracy in the U-18 matches.
By the way, Davis had set a record of being the first Singaporean to sign a professional contract with a top-tier football club.
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His father is thrilled too, saying that “Singapore has shown that it can produce players that can compete in the top league.”
Their jubilation probably lasted all of two days, until this happened.
Sorry, no NS deferment. You never go Olympics uh
On 15 July, Mindef released a statement, saying Davis’s application for NS deferment was rejected.
Mindef said that they’ve already communicated the rejection to the Davis family on 11 Jun, and expects him to enlist with his cohort.
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Currently, Davis is working with the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) to make an appeal on Mindef’s decision.
Davis’s father said, “If Ben is not deferred then the message is clear and simple; that there is no chance or opportunity for team sportsmen to compete on the World stage.”
So is this a done deal? Maybe yes, maybe no
Back in 2011, a violin prodigy named Ike See applied for deferment from NS. He was accepted into the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in the United States.
This school is the music equivalent of Harvard or Oxford University.
He was accepted for a three-year degree scholarship at Curtis.
And Mindef turned him down. They felt that it would be unfair if he was allowed to defer NS and that his reason wasn’t “strong enough”.
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Eventually, Ike See’s application for NS deferment was accepted. But that was only after he was forced to “downgrade” himself from a three-year degree to a two-year diploma course at Curtis.
This, Mindef says, is in line with their practice of allowing deferment up to the polytechnic level for most Singaporeans.
Now you know what Singaporeans are talking about today; do check back tomorrow for another piece of news of the day!
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