2009 Nov 24 Talking Balls: Bets, Jets & Threats
Newcastle Jets are demanding that the AUD 1 million fee agreed for the loan of Joel Griffiths be paid in full before Nov 30 otherwise the player will return to Australia. According to Jets owner Con Constantine, Beijing have reneged on their part of the deal. Watch this space.
Another space worth watching is Tianjin, where the Tianjin Daily reports that sacked Guoan coach Lee Jang-Soo is close to signing for Beijing’s biggest rivals. Lee poured cold water on the rumours by claiming that he has no interpreter with him so wasn’t discussing contracts.
Gambling has gone from under the radar to under the microscope. The gambling crackdown is getting serious. Players and club managers are getting arrested. The biggest so far being Wang Po, former boss of Shaanxi Guoli (now known as Shaanxi Chanba). Shaanxi’s former Brazilian coach, the 62-year old Carlos de Oliveira said in an interview with Sohu.com that “Wang Po is a devil, I really should’ve thrown a party when I heard the news that he’s arrested. He claimed he has guanxi to make my family disappear, he took away my interpreter and decided the line-up himself, although I didn’t speak Chinese, but I can tell the line-up he put up was not for winning. He threatened to ‘make my family disappear’, but I was a fighter and would never surrender to that kind of threat, though I know he probably did have the power to do that. I didn’t want my family to get hurt, that was exactly why I resigned from Shaanxi.”
Carson Yeung, the new owner of Birmingham City, has told Sina.com that he will purchase one or two Chinese players. He says “Even if they are not good enough to make the starting eleven it will still be good for Chinese football just to have them at the club.” Yeung has already employed former China captain Fan Zhiyi, and subsequently sent him back to China to scout for stars. Apparently Fan has earmarked Hao Junmin of Tianjin Teda and Jiang Ning of Qingdao Jonoon as the players who might make the grade in the UK. Yeung has also promised to spend over 30 million pounds on new talent. The problem? It’ll be “someone of his (Andriy Shevchenko) level,” bad luck Blues fans.
Someone who does not own a sports club is Yao Ming. Despite earlier reports to the contrary, it’s been established that Yao does not own the Shanghai Sharks outright.
Former China captain Li Weifeng won the South Korean FA Cup with Suwon Samsung Bluewings. This is good for Li, and for South Korea if his notorious temper is anything like it was here in China – Li was the player whose suspension led to the end of Wuhan as a football team.
Sun Mingming, all seven-feet-nine-inches of him, has signed a three-year contract at the Beijing Ducks. Sidney Moncrief, the coach for the new season, said Sun “is a bit slow but he’s helpful on rebounds.” Sun is known worldwide for being taller than Yao, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, a Discovery Channel documentary and for beating up Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 3.
Finally, Zheng Zhi fans can find the likeminded at Beijing’s Celtic Supporters Club. Celtic fans might well like it too. More on this soon.
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Talking Balls: Blazing Trails in Portland, Costly Foreign Faces and Those Downtrodden Ducks
New Year’s resolution for sports have always been associated with winning another champion or breaking the world record, but for China’s sportswear tycoon Li Ning, his resolution is open his first US store in Portland on January 4.
Talking Balls: Dopers, Dopes and the Dopey Looking
Remember Mohamed Kallon? The former Inter Milan star was banned for eight months in 2003 for testing positive for Nandrolone and then ended up setting up his own club back in his native Sierra Leone. Well Mr. Kallon no longer plays for the egotistically named Kallon FC, no, he’s back in the big time … at Shaanxi Neo-China Chanba. Joking aside, Kallon was one of the brightest talents in the world game and at 30 years-old his signing has placed Shaanxi as favourites for the CSL title. Bad luck for Beijing’s hopes of retaining the trophy.
Talking Balls: AWOL Aussies, Skipper Kidnaps and Giant Kids
Beijing Guoan are not even playing at the moment, but are still managing to be controversial. This time the controversy stretches all the way to Australia and guess who’s at the center of it? None other than Beijing’s former hardman/nutcase/sensation, Joel Griffiths. As mentioned in a previous Talking Balls it was understood that he was fated to return to the Newcastle Jets after Guoan refused to meet the Australian team’s valuation. But now Griffiths has gone AWOL from the A-League club. He skipped his first training session highlighting that he had an agreement that Beijing only had to offer AUD 350,000 to secure his services for next season. The Chinese champions did that on New Year’s Eve but the Jets said that deal was contingent on Griffiths finishing the A-League season and that deal ended on December 16. Read more here and here. If Griffiths is to play for Guoan in next season’s Asian Champions’ League then he needs to be registered before January 11. Wait and see.
Talking Balls: Meat Pie, Humble Pie and Pie in the Sky
Some sports are better than others. Snooker should be right up there at the top. The reason? You can win your own body weight in pies. Ding Junhui did just that a little over a week ago. Ding won a world-ranking event when he beat John Higgins 10-8 in an exciting climax to the Pukka Pies United Kingdom Championship at the Telford International Centre. Ding collected a first prize of GBP 100,000, the largest prize of his career, rose to sixth in the provisional world rankings and was presented with his own weight, 68kg, in Pukka Pies, a total of 276 pies. That’s champion.
Talking Balls: Groups of Death and Deathly Groups
The AFC Champions’ League draw took place yesterday. Beijing Guoan’s reward for winning the CSL title is Kawasaki Frontale, J.League runners-up in three of the past four years, K-League runners-up Seongnam Ilhwa and reigning A-League champions Melbourne Victory. Matches begin on February 23rd.
The SportAccord Combat Games have been confirmed to take place in late August and early September next year. The event will feature 13 disciplines – some of which are familiar to the Olympics and others that are much more brutal. Fans of seeing split lips and bruising will have to wait ‘til then for the accompanying cultural program.
Real Madrid and their publicity shy star Ronaldo have stated that they will return to Beijing as part of their 2010/11 pre-season tour. Which galacticos that make the trip remains to be seen, as the August 8th date is less than a month after the World Cup final.
