The Singapore Rugby Union is the governing body for rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. It was founded in 1948. The current president is Low Teo Ping, and current CEO is Ian Bremner.

2005 Financial Scandal

In October 2005, it was reported that Sean Lee, a former financial executive of the Singapore Rugby Union, absconded with SGD$300,000. On the last day of his work when he resigned, the money was found missing from the Union's accounts.

In April 2007, the absconded amount was revealed to be three times more than what was originally reported in November 2005. A total of SGD$1.215 million was misappropriated over an 18-month period by writing Union checks with forged signatures to companies registered under his name.

As a result, the Singapore Rugby Union was put on a hiatus, staff retrenched, and the former President stepping down, and with a new CEO Ian Bremner taking over. To date, Sean Lee has yet to be found.

2009 Local Players Boycott

In March 2009, nearly half of the national team went on strike citing nationality bias by the management, as well as not addressing some issues and concerns with training. Ex-captain and incumbent backrower Rong Jing Xiang was also part of the players who went on strike.

After the Rugby Union met with the 9 players to resolve the issue, the Singapore Rugby Union agreed to address some their concerns and also to implement a "balance" in the ratio of local to expatriate players in the team. In final team selections, Rong Jing Xiang was subsequently dropped from the team.

It is also interesting to note that the national team is made up largely of expatriate players. The 2009 training squad consisted of 17 expatriate players, and 13 local players. The captain, Ben Wheeler, who took over captaincy from Rong Jing Xiang (Singapore's most capped player with 45 appearances), had only 2 caps prior to the Asian 5 Nations tournament. Critics are beginning to wonder if this move by CEO Ian Bremner is a right move for the development of rugby amongst the locals in Singapore, and if the Singapore National Rugby team is headed into the same direction as Hong Kong's National Rugby team, which is dominated by expatriate players.