Singapore resigns coach Avramovic for two years

The Football Association of Singapore has announced that former Oman coach Radojko Avramovic has signed a further two-year contract as Singapore's national team coach. His extension follows that of four other staff coaches, Robert Lim, Lee Bee Seng, V Sundramoorthy and Kadir Yahaya. “FAS is delighted to have secured the commitment of the coaches,” said FAS General Secretary, John Koh. “We are looking forward to build towards greater success, not only from our national team, but also our developmental youth teams, in the years to come."

The 56-year-old Serbo-Montenegrin took charge of Singapore in 2003 and despite some poor results during his first year in reign, the former Yugoslavia national goalkeeper lead the island republic to a 5-2 aggregate victory over Indonesia in the Tiger Cup final in January 2005. Singapore is currently ranked 14th in Asia and is the top South East Asian team in the December 2005 FIFA World Ranking.

“I have started something here in Singapore and I want to finish it. We have started to change the face of the national team and that job is not finished yet," Avramovic was quoted by the FAS website.

"We are building a team for the future and 2006 will be a very important year for us. We have the Asian Cup qualifiers, possibly the Asian Games, as well as to defend the ASEAN Football Federation Championship (formerly the Tiger Cup). With everybody getting behind the Lions, I am confident that we can do well.”