An anti-gambling advertisement which featured a man betting his son’s life savings on Germany winning the FIFA World Cup was panned by Singaporeans online yesterday after it was shown during Brazil’s crushing semi-final defeat at the hands of the Mannschaft.
The advertisement by the Singaporean National Council on Problem Gambling featured a group of boys excitedly discussing who would triumph in the ongoing tournament.
At the end of the commercial, one of them frowns and says: “I hope Germany wins. My dad bet all my savings on them,” and the screen fades out to a message cautioning about the social fallout of gambling.
Yet for many Singaporeans the message fell on deaf ears as Germany romped home to a record breaking 7-1 victory over the host nation on Tuesday. The advert first aired at halftime, when the European squad were already 5-0 ahead, prompting much mirth and ridicule online in the city-state, including from two top government officials.
“Bad timing,” Singaporean Minister for Manpower Tan Chuan Jin wrote on Facebook. “Looks like the boy’s father who bet all his savings on Germany will be laughing all the way to the bank.”
“At least the boy in the advertisement can get his savings back,” added Teo Ser Luck, a junior minister in the Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry.
A meme of the commercial made by local blogger Lee Kin Mun with the caption “Always trust your father. #GER 7 : #BRA 1” went viral on Twitter yesterday morning.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier