The performance by Taiwan’s men’s national soccer team during 2014 World Cup qualifiers earlier this month prompted soccer’s world governing body FIFA to offer about US$300,000 to develop soccer in Taiwan.
Taiwan lost to Malaysia 1-2 in the first round of qualifiers in Malaysia last month, but made a strong comeback in Taipei by beating Malaysia 3-2.
The national team didn’t make it into the second round of qualifiers, having failed to qualify on goal difference because it scored one fewer goal away from home.
The game in Taipei drew about 10,000 spectators.
Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) president Lu Kun-shan (盧崑山) said yesterday that FIFA had sent six senior managers and consultants to Taipei last week to evaluate the association’s operations.
The FIFA officials helped establish a two-year development plan based on the goals that CTFA had set for itself, he said.
The goals include raising the men’s national soccer team’s ranking to the top 140 and that of the women’s team to the top 30 by December 2015. By 2018, the nation would have 12 professional men’s soccer teams and six women’s soccer teams.
“Our understanding is that about US$300,000 will be invested in the plan,” Lu said.
“Whether we can continue to secure the funding depends on our performance,” he said.
FIFA said Taiwan’s global ranking stood at No. 153.
Taiwan reached its highest FIFA ranking, No. 144, in 2006. Its second-highest FIFA ranking, No. 147, was achieved in March, up from No. 170 last year.
Meanwhile, the CTFA has recruited former South Korean national team player Lee Tae-ho (李泰昊) as the new coach for the men’s national team.
Lee, 50, participated in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
The South Korean veteran was also assistant coach of the Daewoo Royals Football Club between 1993 and 1994 and head coach of the national youth team between 2003 and 2007.
In 1989, he was selected by the K-League as their top scorer, with 57 goals and 27 assists in 181 games.
Lee was on hand to watch the performance of the Taiwanese team in Malaysia and Taipei. His first task as head coach will be to lead the team in a friendly against Singapore, which will take place in Singapore on Monday.
He said the team needed to strengthen its offense.
“If you lose one goal, you redeem that loss by scoring two,” Lee said through an interpreter. “Defense is also important if you want to win, but offense has to be better.”
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS