Former coach admits conspiring to falsify finswimming results for SEA Games selection

Former coach admits conspiring to falsify finswimming results for SEA Games selection The falsified documents led to six additional athletes being selected to represent Singapore in finswimming at the 2023 SEA Games. SINGAPORE: A former team manager and coach of finswimming at the Singapore Underwater Federation (SUF) admitted on Wednesday (Aug 26) to conspiring with his vice-president and head coach to falsify competition results to secure athletes' selection into the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games). Singaporean Muhammad Faiz Suhaimi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to make a false electronic record to commit fraud. Two other charges will be considered during sentencing. Although Faiz initially went along with the plan allegedly hatched by Ho Ho Huat, he was hesitant and later voluntarily informed a whistleblower about the wrongdoing. The falsified documents at the Malaysian Championship resulted in six additional athletes being selected to represent Singapore in finswimming at the 2023 SEA Games, including Ho's daughter. THE CASE Faiz is alleged to have conspired with 56-year-old Ho, the vice-president of sports and head coach of finswimming at SUF at the time, and 36-year-old Gary Lee Quan Hua, an assistant finswimming coach at SUF. The court heard that SUF is the national sports association responsible for promoting underwater and aquatic sports in Singapore, including finswimming. Finswimming comprises several disciplines, with athletes competing using either monofins resembling fish tails or bifins, also known as stereofins, commonly used by scuba divers. At the time of the offences, the 32nd SEA Games was 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. In December 2022, during the selection process for the 2023 SEA Games, Ho received a handbook from the organisers setting out sporting events featured at the games and realised that some finswimming events had been removed. As a result, some athletes Ho had hoped to send to the SEA Games were no longer eligible for selection because their events were not on the competition programme. According to court documents, Ho wanted to nominate more finswimming athletes for the Games 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. He reached out to the president of the Malaysia Underwater Sports Federation (MUSF), which was organising the first Malaysian Fin Swimming Championship in Malaysia in January 2023, to ask if he could send Singaporean athletes. The president of MUSF was initially reluctant as the event was meant for Malaysian swimmers, but he gave in to Ho, who sent five Singaporean athletes to take part. At the Malaysian Championship, the five athletes competed in a demonstration swim and other individual and relay events. They did not take part in a 4x200m relay surface event after arriving late. After the event, no official result sheet was issued to the five athletes. Instead, Ho sent the results to the athletes via WhatsApp. A few days later, Ho allegedly raised the idea of falsifying the Malaysian Championship results to Faiz and Lee. The two subordinates were hesitant but relented because Ho was more senior than them and they were afraid to question him. In a WhatsApp group chat, the trio discussed which athletes they intended to nominate for the SEA Games as part of the appeal process and the sporting events and timings to include. Most of the discussions, including how to produce qualifying timings without arousing suspicion, were between Ho and Faiz, the prosecution said. On Jan 18, 2023, Faiz used software to create a false electronic record of four events at the Malaysian Championship, including the 4x200m relay event. The forged results also stated that female athletes had taken part in events although only male athletes had attended the meet. The false record was sent to the sports performance manager of finswimming, intending to induce SNOC to select athletes to represent Singapore in finswimming events at the SEA Games. In February 2023, Lee's grandmother died, so he did not take part in any further discussions on the falsification of results. Ho and Faiz began discussing this privately instead of in their group chat with Lee. When the sports performance manager of finswimming asked for the official results of the Malaysian Championship, Faiz said he would first check with Ho. The pair then discussed how to respond and agreed to add the falsified results to the official result sheet of the Malaysian Championship. Ho allegedly did so, reviewing drafts of the altered document with Faiz and making amendments before emailing it to the sports performance manager. The SNOC Appeal Committee eventually selected eight athletes to represent Singapore at the 2023 SEA Games. Of these, two had already been selected to represent Singapore for another SEA Games event, but the falsified results induced SNOC to select them for an additional event. The remaining six athletes, including Ho's daughter, would not have been selected without the falsified results. SNOC incurred an additional expense of about S$15,700 to send the six athletes to the 2023 SEA Games. AFTERMATH In December 2023, Ho was removed from his position at the SUF. Three weeks after Ho's removal, Faiz and Lee informed an anonymous whistleblower about the falsified finswimming results. Faiz also expressed regret for his actions. The whistleblower informed SNOC's then-president, Minister Grace Fu, about the falsification. SNOC and Sport Singapore subsequently began investigations. When the sports performance manager responsible for overseeing SUF wrote to the president of MUSF to ask for the official results of the Malaysian Championship, Ho persuaded him to send the falsified document. The sports performance manager then asked if the falsified document showed the correct results, as he understood that no female Singapore athlete had taken part. The president of MUSF maintained that the names of the female athletes had been submitted to MUSF's secretariat. SNOC convened a Committee of Inquiry (COI) in July 2024 to establish if the SUF had falsified the results, and the circumstances surrounding it. The COI spent 12 hours interviewing 11 people and another 10 hours preparing a report. It found, among other things, that the results had been falsified and that Ho had played a pivotal role in the scheme. SNOC lodged a police report in March 2025. Deputy Public Prosecutor Dhiraj G Chainani sought a fine of S$10,000 to S$15,000 for Faiz, noting his voluntary disclosure and his position relative to Ho. The prosecutor said there were no sentencing precedents involving the successful falsification of sporting results to influence a national body's selection of athletes for an international competition. He said that the prosecution's position rested principally on the fact that Faiz had disclosed the concealed scheme before any official investigation began. Sentencing was adjourned to September. For conspiring to make a false electronic record to commit fraud, Faiz could be jailed for up to four years, fined, or both. The cases for Ho and Lee are pending.