SINGAPORE — Unable to head down to a stadium to catch an S.League game this season? Fret not, for matches will be streamed “live” under a new initiative.

According to the Football Association of Singapore, this has been made possible by the Live Streaming Platform project under the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President’s Initiatives Programme, which aims to help member associations (MAs) strengthen the game in their respective countries.

The streaming will take place on the website of video streaming specialists mycujoo, AFC’s partner for the project.

The opening game of the season, to be played on Sunday night (Feb 26) at 6pm between Tampines Rovers and Albirex Niigata (S), at the National Stadium, will be the first to be streamed “live”.

Currently, local football supporters can also watch “live” S.League matches almost every Friday on official television broadcasters Mediacorp.

However, TODAY understands that the plan is to stream one additional S.League game every week.

As staff familiarise themselves with the process and set-up, the S.League will eventually move on to streaming every match next season.

There are also plans to stream matches from both the National Football League and Women’s National League.

The Women’s Development Tournament, held here two weeks ago between Singapore, Malaysia and Bangladesh, was used as a testbed by FAS. The final game between Singapore and Malaysia drew close to 6,600 views.

“The AFC approached us (with this) and because we have been looking at introducing live streaming for quite some time, this came at the right time,” a FAS marketing spokesperson told TODAY.

“About two weeks ago, they (staff from mycujoo) came down for the first time and gave us the resources needed. The (organisation of the) streaming is under the responsibility of the FAS, while they will provide technical support… the plan is to be self-sufficient (eventually).”

It is understood that most of the costs will be borne by AFC, while the task of training staff to become familiar with the streaming set-up lies with FAS.

The process can be as simple as using a phone to stream matches, using the mycujoo application.

It is also possible to scale up operations with multi cameras and high definition equipment if desired.

There are also plans to add commentary to the streamed matches, which will remain on the FAS’s dedicated mycujoo channel after they end and be available for replay.

This is not the first time that S.League matches have been streamed “live”. In 2015, now-defunct sports news portal VOXSPORTS provided the service for select games.

Last July, Bhutan became the first country to embrace this initiative, which was introduced as part of the AFC’s inaugural Media Management and Marketing Workshop programme.

Other MAs to have joined since are Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Chinese Taipei, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Oman, Laos, India, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Jordan.

The S.League matches will be streamed on https://mycujoo.tv/ch/320.