Chinese Taipei Football Association officials handed out team awards and individual honors at a ceremony on Monday, with Taipei Tatung capturing the Taiwan Football Premier League (TFPL) title, while Taichung Blue Whale claimed the crown in the women’s Mulan League.
Taipei Tatung, who racked up 17 wins, three draws, and one loss this season for 54 points, also received a NT$700,000 check.
Kaohsiung Taipower finished a distant second on 44 points after 13 wins, five draws and three losses.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Taipei Football Association
Taipei Tatung star striker Marc Fenelus hit 27 goals to win the Golden Boot Award for a second consecutive season after he scored 38 goals last year.
The Turks and Caicos Islands international also received a NT$100,000 check.
Fenelus began playing in Taiwan in September 2015, when he signed for Taipei Tatung, and he has represented the Turks and Caicos Islands in three World Cup qualification games, as well as at the 2014 Caribbean Cup.
Taipei Tatung’s Chiang Mu-tsai took home the Manager of the Year award.
Chiang, a former Taiwan national team manager, has been at Taipei Tatung since 1988, leading the team to five championship titles in the past three decades.
“For next year, our target is to defend this championship title again. I want to thank Tatung for its continued support and for providing funds for us to sign overseas players,” Chiang said.
Taipei Tatung and Kaohsiung Taipower are eligible to enter the qualification round for next year’s AFC Cup, but their participation has hit a snag.
“Our team got all the papers ready for the registration and we were looking forward to making a run in the AFC Cup, but CTFA officials of the old regime [prior to an election last month] did not submit the required papers to the AFC before the deadline, so we did not get registered in time,” Chiang told reporters.
The result of the Golden Glove Award for best goalkeeper was perceived by many as an upset, as Chiu Yu-hung of Kaohsiung Taipower took the honor, beating Taipei Tatung’s Pan Wen-chieh.
A regular for the national team in the past two years, Pan had replaced Chiu in goal for Taiwan.
Taichung Lions, Royal Blues Taipei and National Sports Training Center finished in the bottom three and are set to face-off in a relegation battle later this month to determine which two stay in the TFPL.
In the Mulan Football League, Taichung Blue Whale defeated Taipei PlayOne 2-0 in both legs of a playoff to claim the title.
Blue Whale, Taipei PlayOne and Hualien finished in the top three in the regular-season with 30, 27 and 24 points respectively after 12 matches.
Blue Whale forward Lee Hsiu-chin scored in each of the playoff matches and topped the regular-season scoring chart with 15 goals to claim the Golden Boot Award and a NT$100,000 check.
Liao Wen-chi of Inter Taipei picked up the Golden Glove Award.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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