SINGAPORE — She went from accompanying her sons to their football training sessions like thousands of other football mums to running a football academy.

Ms Radhika Radhakrishnan, 40, left her cushy job as an accountant in May last year to run the F-17 Football Academy, which was founded in 2013 by local football legend Fandi Ahmad. The academy provides professional football coaching to children aged between two and 16 in three locations around Singapore.

The self-declared football mum, who sat down with TODAY for an interview on Thursday (Oct 24), has since grown the academy from 200 to 500 students within a year as its chief financial officer (CFO). As CFO, she is the boss, reporting directly to the shareholders.

Mr Fandi, who officially left the academy in 2017, is currently the coach of Singapore Premier League club Young Lions.

HARDCORE SOCCER MUM

Even before she had taken the helm at the academy, Ms Radhika had been closely involved with it as a parent.

She had enrolled two of her three sons, then aged seven and eight, in the academy back in 2014 after looking for a football academy which would focus on personal development rather than simply winning games.

She had been impressed by the academy’s philosophy of nurturing young footballers. The academy, which had an enrolment of about 100 students at that time, was also small enough that coaches could focus on the individual development of the students.

She also appreciated the coaches’ approach towards the children. “None of the F-17 coaches shout at the children, which is not at all common in other academies,” said Ms Radhika.

From that point on, she showed up for every training session, held thrice weekly, and any tournaments that they took part in.

“I’m a hardcore football mum. I don’t miss any training. I don’t miss any games. I don’t miss any tournaments, be it school or academy,” said Ms Radhika, who added that her only exposure to the game was through her sons.

During this period, Ms Radhika said that she came to know Mr Fandi and his wife Ms Wendy Jacobs, whose youngest son Iryan Fandi played alongside her eldest son, now 13.

While they were “close”, Ms Radhika said that she knew Mr Fandi and his wife only as fellow parents and was not sure of the extent of his involvement in the academy at that time.

Young football players at the F-17 Football Academy. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong/TODAY

In 2014, Mr Fandi had begun coaching the LionsXII, Singapore’s club in the Malaysian Super League. A year later, he went on to launch his own Fandi Ahmad Football Club and had told the media that he was “in talks” with F-17 Academy on whether to remain involved in the academy.

He officially left the academy in 2017 to coach the Young Lions, although Ms Radhika said this did not impact the academy’s operations.

However, in March 2018, Ms Radhika found out that the two shareholders of the academy at that time, Mr Mizra Ismail and Mr Erik Lorenz, were looking to sell the company as they no longer had the time to invest in it.

Ms Radhika, who by then was well-known among the staff there, was asked to help search for potential owners who would maintain the values of the academy.

She roped in Mr Mageswaran Devdas, a financial planner whose sons were also in the academy, and his friend Mr Desh Balakrishnan, who heads the media team at marketing communications firm MullenLowe Singapore.

She also helped both the incoming and outgoing management broker the financial details of the takeover, given her expertise in accounting.

Ms Radhika, who up till then had been helping out the management “as a favour”, was thus taken aback when both the past and present shareholders asked her to stay on in a full-time position to manage the academy.

“I didn’t see it coming at all … I was still working up the corporate ladder at my previous firm. I was definitely of the mind that I would retire there,” said Ms Radhika, who had been at a commodities trading firm for eight years at that time.

However, the management and coaches at the academy convinced her to take up the post, citing her expertise in finance and her long-term involvement in the academy as a parent, which had helped her to build trust with the staff.

HEADING THE ACADEMY

Since taking up the CFO post in April last year, Ms Radhika has been able to grow the academy even though running a sporting club was an entirely new field to her.

The academy’s full-time staff has grown from four to 20, and student numbers have also grown from 200 to 500 in the time that she has been in charge.

To ensure that the academy sticks to its ethos of providing “holistic and comprehensive” training for children in football, Ms Radhika introduced a new membership package which allows students to join training sessions which cater to their age and competency level. This is different from the previous package, which allowed students to join any training session that was available, resulting in children of varying skill levels in a single training session.

One feather in the academy’s cap is the partnership that it struck with English Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club. Under the partnership, Wolves conducts programmes on food and nutrition and fitness for children at F-17 Academy. Coaches from the Singapore academy and English club share coaching techniques with one another.

Fandi Ahmad, the local footballing legend who founded the F-17 Football Academy. TODAY file photo

But the biggest learning point for Ms Radhika, who says she has no footballing background, has been to understand the intricacies of football.

“Previously, when my son scored a goal, I would be very happy and think that he has done a good job,” she said.

“But now, because I sit with the coaching team, I realise scoring goals is not always the requirement, especially when you are meant to pass the ball.”

With all that she has learnt on the job so far, there is nothing holding back the football mum who has big plans for the academy’s future.

While the academy is not profitable yet, Ms Radhika said that it is “moving up the curve” to becoming sustainable in the next three years. She also plans to expand the academy overseas in five years.

Despite all that she has achieved with the academy, Ms Radhika said she is still a football mum at heart.

“My sons know that if I’m at the field in my T-shirt and shorts, I’m there as a parent, but if I’m in the F-17 jersey, I’m there to manage official matters.”