Lawmakers and athletes yesterday criticized the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) for changing a rule on the military service requirement for players, which they said would disrupt soccer players’ development and deal a damaging blow to their career.
The CTFA must rescind the new regulation because it violates players’ rights, with 12 top-level players being affected, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) and Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said at a news conference.
According to Sports Administration regulations, Taiwanese soccer players who have participated in the Asian Zone competition for World Cup qualifiers and other major international tournaments are eligible for a short 12-day alternative military service in lieu of the one-year mandatory military service, Liu said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
However, the CTFA last year added a requirement that only athletes who have professional contracts with foreign clubs are eligible for the 12-day alternative service, Liu said.
Pan Wen-chieh (潘文傑), starting goalkeeper for the national team and Taipei Tatung FC, said that if the dispute over the military service issue is not addressed, he would lose a whole year of his career, which would negatively affect his training and preparation for international competitions.
“We all have seen Pan Wen-chieh’s outstanding performance at recent international games. He was one of the main reasons that Team Taiwan picked up a string of victories and raised our nation’s world ranking to 121st place,” Liu said.
Fans and soccer officials have credited Pan’s performances as among the keys to the success the team has enjoyed under British head coach Gary White, who had depended on Pan as the starting goalie for Team Taiwan throughout the past year.
The CTFA had made an arbitrary change, which has no legal basis, Hsu said, urging the Sports Administration to investigate the issue.
Aside from Pan, there are 11 others who have played for Team Taiwan in the Asian Zone qualifiers for World Cup finals or at the Universiade Games last year or in 2015, who might be affected by the rule change, he said.
“For the one-year [military] service, I would have to report to the National Sports Training Center in Kaohsiung and be a ‘trainee athlete’ under the control of sports agency officials,” Pan said. “This would disrupt my playing career for one year and negatively affect my training and development, for which I might lose my status as the starting goalkeeper for the national team.”
“This is because if I go to the training center, I would be the only goalkeeper there. I cannot develop my goalkeeping skills on my own and they do not have the coaching staff for my specific training regimen,” he added.
Although some of his national squad teammates, such as Chen Po-liang (陳柏良) and Wen Chih-hao (溫智豪), play for professional clubs in China, Pan said it is nearly impossible for him to play in other countries, and this is a big disadvantage for him compared with other players.
“In China, all the club goalkeepers are Chinese nationals. They do not hire foreigners for this position, because they want to protect the vital goalkeeping position for their own players and to develop them for their national team,” Pan said.
“It is the same for Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries: They do not want foreigners as goalkeepers at any club level. For many coaches, goalkeepers are among the most important position on a team, because, as they say, it can spell the difference between victory and defeat,” he said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS