Taiwan’s top pool player Wu Chia-ching could obtain Singapore citizenship to play there after his salary demands were not met, a Taiwanese sports official confirmed yesterday.
“We really regret this, but the pay he requested is too high and we cannot meet his demand,” Tu Yung-hui, executive director of the Chinese-Taipei Billiard Association, said by phone.
Wu has not received Singapore’s citizenship yet, but flew there on Wednesday after pay talks collapsed.
Wu’s father said Chia-ching is in Singapore for holiday.
“Wu Chia-ching has not signed the contract with Singapore yet. Singapore has only made the verbal offer to him,” Wu Chen-chung told cable TV channel FTV.
Wu Chia-ching met with Taiwanese Sports Minister Tai Hsia-ling and Tu, head of the billiards association, on Feb. 19 to demand a pay rise.
If that was not met, he said he would play for Singapore.
“Singapore, eager to attract sports talents, has offered him the equivalent of NT4.6 million [US$130,000] per year, but we can only raise our pay to NT$600,000,” he said.
Wu, 20, became the youngest-ever world champion aged 17 in 2005.
However, he has complained about funding and the lack of retirement provisions.
Players are not paid unless they are picked for training for the Asian Games for which they can receive NT$25,000 per month.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS