SINGAPORE: A former finswimming coach at the Singapore Underwater Federation (SUF) was sentenced to one week’s jail on Monday (Sep 14) for conspiring with his vice-president and head coach to falsify competition results to secure athletes’ selection into the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games).
Muhammad Faiz Suhaimi, a 33-year-old Singaporean, had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to make a false electronic record to commit fraud. Two other charges were considered in sentencing.
His alleged co-conspirators are Ho Ho Huat, 56, then the vice-president of sports and head coach of finswimming at SUF, and 36-year-old Gary Lee Quan Hua, then an assistant finswimming coach at SUF.
The falsified documents resulted in six additional athletes being selected to represent Singapore in finswimming at the 2023 SEA Games, including Ho’s daughter.
SUF is the national sports association responsible for promoting underwater and aquatic sports in Singapore.
This includes finswimming, where athletes compete using monofins resembling fish tails or bifins as used by scuba dinners.
THE CASE
At the time of the offences, the 32nd SEA Games were due to be held in Cambodia in May 2023.
The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) put in place a selection process and set up a selection committee to determine the athletes to represent Singapore at the games.
During the selection process in December 2022, Ho received a handbook setting out featured sporting events and realised that some finswimming events had been removed.
As a result, some athletes were no longer eligible for selection.
Ho allegedly wanted to nominate more finswimming athletes through the appeal process, which would take place sometime in February 2023 and required a qualifying result in a sanctioned competition for the athletes he wished to nominate.
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