Prosecutors are investigating allegations that the chairman of Taiwan’s national soccer body, the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA), bet against the national team in a recent FIFA World Cup Asian qualifier, a magazine report said.
CTFA chairman Lin Cheng-yi (林振義) reportedly reaped NT$40 million (US$1.29 million) in gains for the alleged wager, the Chinese-language Next Magazine wrote yesterday.
The match in question was the March 12 home leg in Kaohsiung of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers, where Taiwan lost to Brunei 1-0 on a bizarre, high-lob goal launched from out near the sideline on the right.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Taipei Football Association
Next Magazine said that Lin, 45, placed several wagers totaling NT$10 million with underground gambling syndicates, at 4-1 that Brunei would beat Taipei.
The news of Lin’s alleged bet against the national team and the subsequent judicial probe has rocked Taiwan’s sports community.
According to the report, Taiwan were highly favored with underground gambling syndicates for the March 12 match, receiving odds of 4-1 for a home victory.
Prosecutors are examining Lin’s bank accounts for evidence, according to the report, which added that investigators have uncovered possible evidence of irregular transactions linking Lin and the bank accounts of his acquaintances.
Next Magazine said that Lin fixed the match by ordering head coach Chen Kuei-jen (陳貴人) to bench key players and by interfering with starting lineup decisions.
Lin was detained on March 23 on charges of profiteering for at least NT$200 million in relation to his ownership and operation of the Hangyuan Co (航源事業公司) funeral service business.
He was also charged in a financial fraud case in 2009.
Lin officially remains CTFA chairman, but vice chairman Liu Fu-tsai (劉福財) took over day-to-day management as interim chairman on April 8.
Lin was elected to the chairmanship on Dec. 7, 2013, in what was described as a surprising result, in which he won in member balloting by beating two high-profile senior executives of large business conglomerates.
The report said what it called Lin’s main match-fixing action was to order coaches to bench top striker Onur Dogan for the match.
Born in Turkey, Dogan is a naturalized Taiwanese citizen by marriage. He played with Turkish second-division club Dardanel Spor AS, and is a regular starter for Taipei City Tatung in Taiwan’s Inter City League.
Put into the starting lineup for the away leg match, Dogan scored the crucial second goal for Taiwan to advance to the group stage by defeating host Brunei 2-0 in Bandar Seri Begawan.
The CTFA yesterday said that it will fully cooperate with prosecutors investigating Lin’s alleged involvement in the potential match-fixing.
The association will fully cooperate with prosecutors if they proceed to launch an investigation of Lin, Liu said.
In response to the magazine’s report, Chen said he did not know whether Lin had gambled on the the Taiwanese team losing. He said that what he can say for sure is that Lin did not give any specific instructions on the use of players.
Chen added that the coaching staff had considered Dogan, Lee Mao (李茂) and Wu Chun-ching (吳俊青) to serve as the team’s forwards in the first qualifying match.
“We have to put out the best player lineup to win. Based on the observations in training, the coaching staff considered that Lee Mao’s physical condition was much better than Dogan’s, who had an ankle injury. As such, Lee played up front and Dogan was benched in the first qualifying match,” Chen said.
Chen said the allegations would definitely hurt the team’s morale, adding that it is really unfair that their efforts and performance are now overshadowed by the negative news coverage.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching