Smaller fields, fewer sports facilities at new home of Turf City's football pitch operator

SINGAPORE: When sports facility The Cage opens in its new, smaller home in Dempsey next February, there will be no space for an 11-a-side football pitch. 

Football pitch operator WWTBF, which runs The Cage at Turf City, will leave its current home at the end of the year and move to 10A Harding Road.

The new site is about 13,000 sq m – around one-eighth of its current premises at Turf City, which is just under 100,000 sq m.

All tenants at Turf City – bar an equestrian operator – are required to leave the Bukit Timah site by Dec 31.

WWTBF director Rajesh Mulani told CNA on Friday (Dec 22) that its most popular offering at Turf City is its 11-a-side pitch. Players on the full-sized pitch form the largest group of customers that the operator caters to.

But the new facility will only have smaller pitches, and no 11-a-side field.

"At Turf City we have built a proper sports park to include paintball, tennis, padel tennis, archery, basketball, indoor cricket, batting nets for cricket, baseball and softball and football – 11-a-side and five-a-side.

"At Dempsey, we will not have the space to set up all of that."

Their smaller home will only have seven-a-side and five-a-side football pitches, as well as padel tennis courts and cricket or baseball batting nets.

"At Turf City, we host about 100,000 man-hours of sports participation every month. At Dempsey, we will be happy with 20 to 30 man-hours of sport,” Mr Mulani said.

The new site at Dempsey will not be able to cater to “all our customers from Turf City”, he added.

“Building a new facility in the current climate is crazy expensive now,” Mr Mulani said.

“It is also painful for us to only be able to cater to a small percentage of our current customers. This creates customer service