Tuesday December 6, 2005
Tough being an icon
By TEO CHENG WEE
Life's not a ball, Fandi Ahmad, Singapore’s favourite soccer son, lamented in a 1991 interview. Football may have brought the gifted striker fame, fortune and adulation. But the self-imposed discipline Fandi brought to his trade meant a lot of sacrifices in his early years: no movies, no parties and no late nights.
Couple that with endless talk over the years about everything from his choice of wife to his business ventures, and you can understand why there is a burden to being Fandi.
Yet, 14 years after that interview – and five years after he hung up his Golden Boots and receded from the floodlights – it’s still no fun being Fandi.
Never mind that his response is “very happy-lah” when I ask him how it feels like to not be the centre of attention anymore.
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Five years after Fandi Ahmad hung up his Golden Boots, everyone still demands a slice of him. |
At 43, the father of four is a little chubbier. His sun-kissed face, which once adorned T-shirts and sent female hearts a-fluttering, is still boyishly handsome, although it is revealing its lines. When he smiles, he still glows. But Fandi now seems more serious, more introspective and less carefree.
Former national teammate, Kadir Yahaya, 37, says: “There is a lot of pressure on him, even now. He’s like a role model for the Malay community and a lot is expected of him. He still gets lots of invitations from schools and for football clinics. He’s still in demand and it can be stressful.”
In 2003, Fandi became the assistant to then interim national coach P.N. Sivaji, even though he had once said he would leave the world of football when he retired as a player.
A reason for his enduring popularity has been his niceness. As Singapore’s first sports millionaire, with agents knocking on his door and 60,000 fans chanting his name every week, Fandi was hardly an average Singaporean.
But he never lost that down-to-earth, kampung boy appeal that has made him so popular.
“I think I broke barriers,” Fandi offered.
“Although I came from a poor, broken family, I worked hard and succeeded. Whether you’re Chinese, Malay or Indian, you can identify with that.”
Born to a hospital attendant and a housewife, Fandi was hawking nasi lemak in a primary school when he was just nine, to supplement the family income.
When he was 12, his parents divorced. But his father, ex-national goalkeeper Ahmad Wartam, had already inspired his deep love for football.
In 1978, when he was 16, Fandi earned his call-up to Singapore's national squad for a tour of Russia. Thus began a journey in football that was to last more than 20 years, some of which were played out in Indonesia, Pahang and Kuala Lumpur.
Clearly, football still runs in his blood, which he says was why he couldn’t leave. Before taking on the national team job, he was the coach of S-League club Singapore Armed Forces FC.
He has always maintained that his biggest regret was rejecting the contract that Dutch football giant Ajax Amsterdam offered him in 1982, after he rubbed shoulders there with legends like Johann Cruyff and Marco van Basten.
Instead, on the advice of his family, he signed for Indonesian club Niac Mitra, which paid him more and kept him closer to home.
One prize he did snag, however, was Wendy Jacobs, now Nur Sarah Abdullah and Mrs Fandi Ahmad.
The beautiful, statuesque South African moved to Singapore in 1994 with her parents, when her father got a job there as a human resource director.
She was a part-time model and 21 when Fandi, then 33, met her at a wedding in 1995.
After a whirlwind romance, the couple tied the knot the following year. Twelve thousand well-wishers thronged their wedding, held at a football field in Yishun.
Four children came quickly – Irfan, who is eight, Ikhsan, six, Iman, five, and Ilhan, two.
But their marriage was dogged by controversy. Some fans were upset that she was not homegrown and that they could not see pictures of the couple’s first-born because the couple had sold the photo rights to a magazine.
Then there were the well-publicised failed ventures in the used-car and restaurant businesses, which Fandi did not want to go into at the interview. He won’t say how much money he lost, or how much property he still has. He concedes though, that he is through with business.
Jacobs didn’t help the cause – or her reputation as a domineering wife – when she once said: “If I had run Fandi’s business, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Jacobs once ran a children’s boutique in Orchard Road. It closed down in 2000 and she now teaches etiquette and grooming to kindergarten kids and corporate clients, and models part-time.
There were also whispers that she instigated his plan to migrate to South Africa in 1997. He denied it then, saying it was a joint decision. That idea was never put to execution and he says they’re now happy to stay put.
The uproar that followed proved how Fandi cannot be just Fandi the football player – because he is Fandi the icon.
With great power comes great responsibility, goes a movie line, and Fandi thinks that is perhaps the hardest thing about being him: “Everything I say, everything I do, it can get blown out of proportion. I didn’t ask for the limelight. It came to me. But I’ve learnt to accept it. I can’t hide at home all day.” – The Straits Times Singapore / Asia News Network
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