Singapore strikes football gold with ICC's magic

WHEN a quartet of the world's top football teams comes to town, it's almost certain that the fans will turn up en masse for the rare opportunity to watch their favourite players in the flesh.

And turn up in droves they did. A total of 103,340 people - many of them from abroad - packed the 55,000-seater National Stadium in Kallang in the space of a little over 24 hours last weekend for the latest instalment of the International Champions Cup (ICC) tournament in Singapore.

The Singapore Sports Hub - which opened in the middle of 2014 - has rarely, if ever, witnessed such crowds in a single weekend before.

The first of this year's two ICC matches last Saturday saw a record 52,897 people watch English Premier League (EPL) giants Manchester United - playing in Singapore for the first time since 2001 - defeat Italy's I…