Lion City Sailors’ (LCS) starlet Nur Ain Salleh is the latest Singapore football talent to be granted the Unleash The Roar! (UTR!) Overseas Football Scholarship.
The Lion City Sailors starlet has scored a four-year football scholarship and will train and play for Madrid CFF’s youth team. Photo by Unleash The Roar!, Ng Chrong Meng
Ain, who turns 15 on 7 January, will spend the next four years training and playing for the youth team of Madrid CFF. The Madrid-based club’s senior team is currently 10th in the top tier of Spain’s women’s professional league. Notable players who have emerged from Madrid CFF’s youth system include members of the current Spanish national women’s team, Ona Batlle and Vicky Lopez - both now play for FC Barcelona.
Ain will also be continuing her academic pursuits in Spain and will be enrolled in King’s College Soto de Vinuelas, a British international school in Madrid.
Ain is the latest addition to the 2024 batch of UTR! Overseas Football Scholarship recipients. Nine other young talents – six boys and three girls aged 14-17 – were unveiled in July. They will be based in both Spain and the United States.
Said Sport Singapore’s Chief of Sport Development Group, Mr Marcus Tan: “We are delighted to be able to help Ain in her pursuit of becoming a professional player.
“At such a young age, she has proven that she is a top prospect, having set the Women’s Premier League alight with some assured performances. We are confident she will benefit from her time in Spain, the current Women’s World Cup champions.”
Standout performer
First spotted by head of LCS’ women’s programme head Yeong Sheau Shyan from the age of six, Ain has stood out wherever she has been, impressing in the Football Association of Singapore’s Cubs programme, Arion FA and the LFA Protectors.
In June last year, Ain was promoted to the Sailors Women’s Team, becoming one of the youngest players ever to feature in the Deloitte Women’s Premier League (WPL). She played a significant role in helping the team secure a historic third consecutive league title, scoring five goals despite only joining mid-season.
Ain was also a standout performer in LCS’s inaugural Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League campaign, where she started both matches against India’s Odisha FC and Jordan’s Etihad Club.
LCS had initially planned to nominate Ain for an overseas stint in 2025. However, her exceptional performances and rapid development led the club and the UTR! Overseas Football Scholarship committee to accelerate her trajectory, recognising that playing abroad now would be most beneficial for her growth.
LCS Academy General Manager Tan Li Yu believes Ain is ready to take this big step forward to her pursuit of a professional football career.
He said: “We’ve been looking for opportunities to send Ain overseas and we felt this is the right time and the right move for her. While she has the talent, it is her attitude and hunger to learn that will get her far in her aspirations.”
“She has shown consistently over the years that she is one of the best in her age group, despite playing against boys. She is an exciting talent that we in Singapore football should cherish and properly nurture. We feel that Spain is the right environment for her to develop her game and we’re excited at what comes of this for her.”
Said Ain, who already had a taste of Spain during two-week training stints with Atletico Madrid’s Under-14 girls’ team in December 2022 and December 2023: “It has always been a goal of mine to play professionally overseas and I want to be playing in the Liga F one day. For sure, it won’t be easy – I will need to adapt to the physicality and the technicality of the game there, but I want to get out of my comfort zone and make my family proud.
“I’m really grateful to everyone who made this move possible, including my coaches at the Sailors Academy and I’m going to work my hardest to show what I’m capable of over there.”
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