I wrote the letter below to Straits Times Forum, to the journalist Wang Meng Meng himself, as well as posted in the STOMP forum.
The Singapore football team was due to have a World Cup qualifiers match against the Palestinians, but the latter failed to show up and Singapore won by a walkover. However, the response of the Singapore national team coach, Raddy Avramovic, “fuming” that he just got a “farcical” win apparently moved Wang Meng Meng to write an unsympathetic commentry about the game.
He claimed that a “simple phone call” would have avoided the whole farce, not a bit of journalistic work about the reasons and situation of the Palestinian team. The photo showing the Singaporean players celebrating further shows their ignorance about world affairs.
Shame on you, Wang Meng Meng, Raddy Avramovic and the Singapore football team.
“I refer to the article “A simple phone call could have prevented this farce” by Wang Meng Meng (ST, 29 Oct). In the article Wang Meng Meng said that the least the Palestinian football team could do was to make a phone call and prevent the walkover game against the Singapore team. He also bemoans the thousands of dollars that the Football Association Singapore (FAS) had to pay for the “farce”.
Wang Meng Meng either has no knowledge about the plight of Palestinians or is taking this opportunity to push an agenda. The Palestinians have strict restrictions to their movement imposed on them by Israel. Unless Wang Meng Meng has, as a journalist, uncovered the news that the Palestinian football team only needs to make a simple phone call to avoid the walkover, he is writing nothing but an opinion. I would suggest that the Straits Times send Wang Meng Meng on a reporting assignment to Palestine. To report, to us Singaporeans, on the conditions that the Palestinian football team is living and training under.
As a sports fan, I am ashamed of Wang Meng Meng’s lack of empathy for sportspeople around the world. Sportspeople would want to play and they want to win. No one wants to lose a game due to a walkover. There must be a very compelling reason why they would miss a match, and no, the reason was not to waste the FAS’ time and money. I am also ashamed of the Singapore football team for celebrating a walkover win. They should be trying to understand why fellow Palestinian footballers cannot attend a game they would love to play.”
Here is Wang Meng Meng’s reply after a few days. I still stand by the fact that his omission of any mention about the difficulties of the Palestinian team traveling definitely shows a bias. The replies in local forums to the issue also shows such partizanship.
“Hi, I appreciate your feedback.
I agree with you that the team have difficulties travelling as it is an Israel-occupied territory. But I would like to bring your attention to the fact that the majority of the Palestine team are overseas-based Palestinians. They play for clubs in other Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain and Qatar or are based in the Americas, like the US and Chile.
Also, the Palestine team played no less than 15 matches since the beginning of last year, none of which was held in Palestine. They had even travelled as far as Guangzhou, China, to play in an Asian Cup qualifier.
Palestine stood us up twice. Once after they were out of Asian Cup contention and now, after they had lost 4-0 in the first leg. I didn’t want to accuse them of gamesmanship. However, it would have been polite of them just to drop a line to say they are not coming, which would have prevented this whole mess.
Regards,
Wang Meng Meng
Correspondent, Sports Desk
The Straits Times, Singapore Press Holdings
mobile: (65) 9007-9585
tel: (65) 6319-5500
fax: (65) 6319-8287 ”
Recent Comments