Does the Singapore Cup beckon for South?

You probably all found out while wasting time in your cramped cubicle, waiting for the drudgery of the working week to pass. Perhaps you're unemployed, and spat out half mashed load of froot loops at your computer screen when you saw that news. Me, I found out very late last night while eating strawberry pancakes on Chapel Street. The news has been overshadowed somewhat by the Gold Coast United and Archie Fraser fiascoes, but still generated it's own, mildly narcotic buzz, so far mainly on FourFourTwo and The Roar.

Now that you've read those pieces - or at least the official press release - you all want to know what I think. Because that's why you're here, right? So here goes. Brilliant opportunity if done right. I am not for the fantasy land idea of a permanent move to Singapore to play in the S-League. There's just no reasoning and no way near enough money and interest to sustain it. Or so I think, after what happened to Perth Kangaroos and Darwin Cubs, and the fact that the S-League is, in its own way, quite unstable when to comes new entrants coming and bowing out just as quickly. And besides, that'd leave us with a lot less away games we could actually make it to.

But this is not that thing. It is an invitation to a cup tournament. Although I'm sure the boffins out at Albert Road Drive have bigger ideas to come. From our end, there are immediate concerns about several factors.

• Games are apparently midweek - and let's face it, most if not all of our players are part timers. And what about the effect of travel? Games would have to be posponed - or at least perhaps we'd have our first round Singapore Cup game moved to the June VPL break period. Though, since it is only the first round that is played before September, it might not be so much of a hassle.
• Costs of travel. The boffins reckon they can raise the cash with sponsorship - hopefully they're right.  
• The FFA knocking it on the head, as has apparently happened with a proposed Northern Territory consortium seeking to play in the S-League. The obvious rejounder to that being, that being invited to participate in a cup tournament is different in some crucial ways - which each side will have to clarify - to playing in a league competition, with all the vagaries about foreign player quotas and such.  
• We lose, and lose badly in the first round.  But that's a risk we should be willing to take, I feel.

What's in it for us?

• As mentioned in several pieces already, an expansion of our brand, whatever thhe hell means - probably to do with sponsors and stuff. 
• Shaking up the box on what a 2nd tier, ostracised club can do if it puts its mind to it.
• Forcing the FFA's hand when it comes to getting its arse into gear about an FFA Cup or 2nd division
• A really cool away trip. 
• We might actually win the damn thing. Or at least get through the first round.

It's all terribly exciting. I'm amazed they managed to sit on for as long as they did. If I was more perceptive - and clearly, I have the analytical powers of a pea - I might have deduced something from questions I was asked by a certain schemer.