SINGAPORE: Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah has refuted allegations in an article by The Online Citizen (TOC) that a football match at Yishun Stadium was abandoned because of instructions she gave to switch the lights off.

ActiveSG, which manages the stadium, later clarified that the lights typically switch off at 9pm but the match between the Warriors Football Club's Under-19 team and the FAS Football Academy Under-18 team on Apr 10 had not ended by then.



The article on Sunday (Apr 15) reported that the stadium's centre manager turned the lights off at 9pm after allegedly receiving instructions from the Nee Soon GRC MP. TOC claimed that Ms Lee's instructions were given as a result of complaints from residents from nearby condominium The Estuary.

When Channel NewsAsia first reached out to Ms Lee on Sunday, the MP simply replied: "It is fake news."

In a Facebook post on Monday, Ms Lee elaborated on the matter, denying that the floodlights had been turned off because of her.

"This is not true. I gave no such instructions, and I do not even run ActiveSG or the Stadium!" she wrote.



She pointed to a post by Warriors Football Club which stated that the match had been suspended due to a "floodlight failure".

"Despite the Warriors FC post, TOC went ahead to post a falsehood. Unfortunately, this is the danger of online falsehoods now," she wrote.

ActiveSG chief Lai Chin Kwang said in a statement to Channel NewsAsia that training sessions and matches at Yishun Stadium typically end at 9pm.

The match was "overrunning by a few minutes", he said.

"Our staff should have exercised the flexibility to allow the match to be completed. We apologise to the FAS, coaches and players for this episode."

Warriors FC general manager Paul Poh told Channel NewsAsia that two of the floodlights shining directly at the nearby condominium automatically shut off at 9pm.

The team had been informed beforehand that the lights would go off at 9pm and were aware that this could happen before the match ended, he added.

He said: "We think it's a mistake on the part of the FAS to schedule a game there - they shouldn't schedule a game there."