Membership requirements for sports associations must still be in sync with those stipulated by international sports organizations following the passage of an amendment to the National Sports Act (國民體育法) on Thursday, the Sports Administration said yesterday at a news conference to provide more information on how it planned to enforce the amended act.
The Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) on Thursday said that the amended act requires each sports association to accept individual members, which clashes with regulations stipulated by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
CTFA secretary-general Chen Wei-jen (陳威任) was reported as saying that the soccer association would lose its memberships of both institutions if it were to accept individual members.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
In response, Sports Administration Deputy Director-General Lin Che-hung (林哲宏) said Chen had assured him yesterday morning that the association would change its regulations in accordance with the amendment act, adding that the media might have misinterpreted what Chen said.
“The CTFA is a member of FIFA and the AFC, and it must observe the rules stipulated by both organizations. It can communicate with both institutions about its needs to abide by the National Sports Act, but the amended act states that sports associations must follow the rules set by the international sports bodies to which they belong, even if they are not congruent with the related regulations in the National Sports Act,” Lin said.
Although the Sports Administration has until February next year to implement the amendment to the act, Lin said the agency hopes to make public the amended regulations by November.
Meanwhile, each sports association must also elect a new management team within the next six months, he added.
Lin also highlighted several crucial reforms, including reinforcing the protection of athletes’ rights and changing the way sports associations operate.
Apart from general insurance, athletes would also be covered by short-term disability income insurance for injuries sustained in competitions, Lin said.
“The amended act also states that the selection, training and participation of athletes is to be conducted in a fair, just, transparent and professional manner. This principle governs the distribution of the athletes’ allowances and appearance fees. The latter are to be given only when athletes are competing in for-profit competitions,” he said.
Based on the amendment, athletes can file complaints or appeal decisions made by sports associations to an appeals committee, Lin said, adding that athletes can also seek arbitration at a special agency set up by the Sports Administration, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee and the Republic of China Sports Federation.
The amended act requires associations hosting competitions to have medical professionals on standby to offer treatment to injured athletes. Each association must have an athletes’ committee, allowing athletes to express their opinions on various issues, Lin said.
Meanwhile, at least one-fifth of the directors of an association should be athletes, he said.
Financial transparency would be an important requirement of all sports associations, Lin said, adding that their financial accounts are to be audited by professional accounting firms. Their use of government subsidies would also be made public.
The Sports Administration would inspect associations’ operations regularly, Lin said, adding that its evaluation reports would be published within three months of an inspection.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods