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.
Less pukka is the news that three more have been arrested in the match-fixing scandal sweeping the Chinese Super League. Xu Hongtao, chairman of Chengdu Blades, and You Kewei, the club's deputy manager, have been arrested for allegedly bribing Qingdao’s Hailifeng Club in order to win a crucial match in September 2007 to China's Premiership. Liu Hongwei, head honcho of Hailifeng, which "deliberately lost the game" to the Blades, has also been detained. This is embarrassing beyond China as the Chengdu Blades are part owned by Sheffield United.
Chinese football fans can take some heart in the fact that Hong Kong beat Japan to lift the 5th East Asian Games crown. Japan went one up thanks to Taisuke Yamamoto but Hong Kong drew level with a goal from Chan Siu-ki. All the more remarkable when Chan had arrived back from a training camp in Britain the morning of the game. Hong Kong’ amateurs then snatched the penalty shootout over Japan’s professionals 4-2. Last month Chan Siu-ki was recently on trial at Tottenham. Look out for the name.
Chan has also attracted the attention of Shanghai Shenhua. If he ends up at the club he might well find he’s working under Miroslav Blazevic, who should by now have signed his contract. Blazevic will go head-to-head with Guoan’s Hong Yuanshou, if the Beijing club stick with him. No word as yet. According to the lastest news from Sina.com, Guoan has made a breakthrough in signing a permanent deal on Joel Griffiths with his homeclub Newcastle Jets - "both sides have almost reached an agreement". His brother Ryan will also remain as will Darko Matic. But there’ll be no Emil Martinez, the Honduran striker is heading to Europe after winning the CSL this year and being the league’s MVP last year. He’ll be missing out on Guoan’s biggest budget ever, which includes RMB 40 million of prize money. The Greens will be putting that towards making an impact in the Asian Champions’ League.
That’s your lot for 2009, next year is but a sporting scandal or two away.