But it was after the Singapore U-22 team’s 0-7 hammering by Malaysia in the 2023 SEA Games that Mr Li first thought of running for the top post.
“I know this matters a lot to a lot of people, to the public and people care about football. But that is exactly the reason why I decided to step up to take this job,” he added.
Mr Li added that he had been thinking about ways to contribute to Singapore.
“I appreciate football. For my life, football brought me a lot of excitement, a lot of experiences. At the same time, I really have that same appreciation for Singapore – for my career, for my journey in business, Singapore gave me everything,” he said.
“I always think – what can I give back to Singapore society?”
Mr Li said that he hoped to apply best practices from his corporate role and pointed out that there are similarities.
“We are the underdog … We are in that position where (we are) not the incumbent in the region for football,” he added.
Asked if he would be open to tapping his own resources, Mr Li said he was “open-minded”.
“Resources are very, very important … I’m more open-minded. We have this mission and if money can help, we’ll find a way to make that happen,” he said.
At the same time, he stressed that local football must meet a certain quality for investment to follow.
“We need to show the progress and we need to show the product. And we need to show that football can really draw the attention, bring the happiness, bring the pride to society … Money will follow the attention, money will follow the pride, and money will follow the joy,” Mr Li said.
He pointed out that at the global level, more money flows into sport.
“Singapore football, because of the past several decades, the lack of investment and the lack of attention, we are not ready for that. What we are trying to do is that we need to improve our own quality first,” added Mr Li.
