The site housing Taipei’s landmark Zhongshan Soccer Stadium is going to be redeveloped into a youth hostel complex, the Taipei City Department of Economic Development announced yesterday.
Many sports fans, cultural preservation activists and Taipei residents were saddened to hear about the proposed demolition of the stadium, which is next to the Yuanshan (圓山) MRT station.
“It is the only field in the city dedicated to soccer. If the plan goes ahead, then it will be damaging to the development of Taiwanese soccer. I feel very sad about it,” Chinese Taipei Football Association secretary-general Wang Sheau-shiun (王筱薰) said.
Wang said that many important games and events had taken place at the stadium, giving it a special place in the collective consciousness of sports fans and Taipei residents.
“The Taipei City Government did not consult Taipei citizens or sports fans about its plan, and they should have a say in the decisionmaking process,” he said.
Built in 1989, the stadium has a natural grass pitch and has served as the training ground for Taiwan’s national squad and local teams, as well as hosted international matches.
The site also has historic significance, as it was first developed in 1923 during the Japanese colonial period, when it housed a sports complex with a baseball park, tennis courts and an athletics field.
In 1951, the site housed the headquarters of the US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG). During the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of US military personnel worked out of the MAAG’s headquarters. Given its rich past, if the stadium is torn down, a part of the nation’s history of Cold War collaboration with the US will be erased.
Aside from soccer training and games, the stadium has also been used intermittently for major concerts and election rallies.
“I will miss the stadium because I attended Phil Collins and Michael Jackson concerts there. Phil Collins was annoyed by the loud noise made by airplanes flying overhead,” said Diane Baker, a long-term Taipei resident from the US.
It is the first and only soccer stadium in the nation to be certified by FIFA and Asian soccer bodies for international qualification matches.
However, the city government appropriated it as the central showcase stage for the International Flora Expo in 2010 and 2011. Afterwards, it did not return the stadium to soccer organizations as it had promised. The stadium is now part of the Taipei Flora Expo Park, under the city government’s management.
According to the Taipei City Department of Economic Development, transforming the stadium into a 170-room youth hostel with recreational facilities would cost NT$500 million (US$16.76 million).
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤) slammed the city government over the plan, saying: “They kicked out all soccer organizations for the Flora Expo and then refused to give it back to the soccer community. Now they want to turn it into a youth hostel. This is short-sighted as there are many such accomodations in the area already,” she said.
Some soccer fans are rallying on social networking sites to save the stadium. They want to organize a protest to demand, as one netizen put it, that the Taipei City Government “return the stadium to us. It is our soccer stadium. You stole it from us.”
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
The Taipei District Court today ruled to extend the incommunicado detention of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) for two more months as part of an ongoing corruption trial. Codefendants in the case — real-estate tycoon Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) and Ko's former mayoral office head Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗) — were granted bail of NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) and NT$20 million respectively. Sheen and Lee would also be barred from leaving the country for eight months and prohibited from contact with, harassing, threatening or inquiring after the case with codefendants or witnesses. The two would also be