Former Football Association of Singapore deputy director pleads guilty to cheating by awarding jobs to wife’s and friend’s firms

SINGAPORE, Jan 4 — As the former deputy director at the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), Rikram Jit Singh dishonestly concealed his intimate relationship with a vendor, in order to continuously deceive FAS into making payments to his wife’s company.

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Rikram, 43, pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Jan 3) to 15 cheating charges.

Another 30 similar charges will be taken into consideration during sentencing on Jan 16.

Shankar Suppiah, Pallaniappan Ravindran and Rikram’s wife Asya Kirin Kames are three other individuals involved in the cheating scheme.

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Shankar has since been sentenced to 4 months’ jail on Nov 18 in 2022. Both Asya and Pallaniappan have yet to be dealt with by the court.

The offences led to a sum of S$609,380 disbursed by FAS with both Rikram and his wife earning a profit of S$127,896.

The profit has since been seized by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and will be returned to FAS.

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FAS conducted an independent audit and found that it did not pay above the usual market rate and did not incur any material loss during the time of the offences.

The association governs the sport of football in Singapore and is responsible for developing and advancing football in the country. It is partially funded by Sport Singapore, which is a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, the court heard.

Rikram joined FAS on Dec 20 in 2010 as a marketing manager and was later promoted to deputy director on July 1 in 2017.

In his role, he was responsible for running the marketing department, strategic planning for FAS, and the procurement of goods and services for its events.

His employment was terminated in January 2019 after FAS investigated him for breaching its code of conduct.

Procurement process at FAS

As deputy director, Rikram had the authority to approve procurements that were valued up to S$10,000.

FAS’ financial protocols required at least three quotations to be obtained from interested vendors for procurements valued between S$3,000 and S$50,000, before the best bid could be approved.

These quotations would then be evaluated by Ms Sunrriahwati Selamat, a marketing manager who worked under Rikram.

The lowest of the three quotations would generally be recommended to Rikram who would determine whether it should be approved.

If the quotation were valued between S$10,000 and S$50,000, he would send the recommended quotation to FAS’ management for approval.

When the quotation is approved, Ms Sunrriahwati would create a purchase requisition order and a purchase order for Rikram’s approval.

She would then liaise with the selected vendor to arrange for the delivery of the goods or services.

Once delivery is completed, all supporting documents including the quotation would be forwarded to FAS’ finance department for payment to be made to the vendor.

Conspiring to work with ARN

Asya, who was an employee with FAS but left in December 2013, set up a company called All Resources Network (ARN), which specialised in event management and the sale of sporting and recreational goods.

ARN was frequently engaged by FAS to organise events and support its events.

Rikram and Asya entered into a romantic relationship.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Thiagesh Sukumaran said that the couple were aware that there was a possible conflict of interest work-wise, because of their respective roles at FAS and ARN.

Yet, Rikram did not disclose this and eventually married Asya in February 2018.

On June 21 in 2017, the Ministry of Social and Family Development entered into an agreement with FAS to fund the production of clappers, stress balls, scroll banners and scarves.

These items were to be produced as the National Council of Problem Gambling’s promotional materials and to be distributed at eight stadiums during S-League matches.

About three months later on Oct 1, Asya transferred ownership of ARN to Shankar, Rikram’s friend.

This was because she had decided to accept an overseas job opportunity and also because the couple were concerned that a clear conflict of interest would arise since they were contemplating marriage.

Despite the transfer of ownership, Asya still remained in control of ARN, including its finances and banking facilities.

She also entered into an agreement with Shankar to receive 60 per cent of ARN’s profits for its future businesses.

Following this, Rikram instructed Shankar to submit a quotation, which was already prepared by Asya for the supply of stress balls for S-League games, DPP Thiagesh said.

Shankar complied and submitted a quotation purportedly from “Rebecca”, who was a fictitious persona that Rikram and Asya had created to prevent FAS from suspecting that they were in a relationship.

The quotation was for S$27,300, but two other quotations were required.

Sometime between December 2017 and January 2018, Rikram approached Ms Sunrriahwati to tell her that he had already confirmed the purchase of stress balls from ARN and instructed her to find two other quotations.

Ms Sunrriahwati understood this to mean that she was to create fictitious quotations that were priced higher than ARN to justify the approval of ARN’s quotation.

This process was repeated for the supply of giant banners and clappers.

Apart from this, in 2016, Rikram conspired with former colleague Pallaniappan to use his company Myriad as a front to quote for supply services and for ARN to perform these jobs.

From July 27, 2016, to March 31, 2018, quotations from Myriad were approved for the supply of clappers, stress balls, scroll banners, hand flags, stickers and football scarves.

However, the items were supplied by ARN.

DPP Thiagesh said that sometime before April 2018, FAS advertised an open tender for the live broadcast of S-League matches.

Without Pallaniappan’s knowledge, Rikram submitted a bid on Myriad’s behalf and represented that Myriad would be supplying technical services, but the service was provided instead by ARN.

‘Grave abuse of authority’

Seeking a jail term of between 24 and 30 months, DPP Thiagesh argued that Rikram had committed a grave abuse of authority as deputy director to commit a systemic, methodical and sophisticated fraud.

“As deputy director at FAS, it allowed him to exert enormous control over the procurement of supply jobs and manipulate the quotation process to ensure that supply jobs were awarded to either ARN or Myriad.”

DPP Thiagesh added that this enabled Rikram to commit cheating offences with impunity for a significant period of time without being detected.

For each charge of cheating, Rikram could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined. — TODAY