Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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TWO COACHES at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) were suspended late last month after criticisms of their abuse of athletes. The two coaches are associate professor in the Department of Sport and Kinesiology, Weng Shih-hang, as well as his assistant coach, Mai Liu Hsiang-han. Weng has been suspended for two years, while NTNU has terminated its contract with Mai Liu, who will not be eligible for employment at NTNU for two years.
Reportedly, the two coaches forced students to bully each other, including making them slap each other and placing sharp objects under them during weight training. Weng was also accused of touching female students inappropriately during exercises.
For his part, Weng has denied the allegations of physical abuse, though he did acknowledge using forceful language. Weng is best known as a former coach of Olympic bronze medalist Tang Chia-hung, who declined to comment on the controversy.
This is not the first time in recent memory that NTNU has come under public scrutiny in connection with a coaching controversy.
Last year, NTNU came under fire over coerced blood sampling of female soccer players. The athletes were members of NTNU’s female soccer team. The athletes were forced to provide three blood samples per day for a period of fourteen days. If they did not comply, the athletes were threatened with the withholding of course credits, so that they would not be allowed to graduate. There were a total of six victims who came forward. Such actions reportedly took place for several consecutive years.
Blood sampling was carried out by unqualified personnel. This has been highlighted as being potentially dangerous, in that torn muscles, infections, or other injuries that threaten players could occur from unprofessional blood sampling.
Coach Chou Tai-ying, who is seen as responsible for the incident, had her coaching license suspended. NTNU was criticized for not immediately removing Chou, however, instead ordering that she halt contact with students and blocking her from salary raises, part-time teaching, overtime, salary increases, and overseas research.
NTNU was ordered to report to the Ministry of Education in three months on improvements. The university has pledged to evaluate its coaching recruitment, training for athletics, and academic research, as well as to establish a new complaints mechanism. NTNU has also been fined 1.1 million NT, while two research project leaders were fined 500,000 NT each.
Even so, these incidents perhaps point to the unaccountable power coaches have in Taiwan’s sporting system, as it dovetails with the frequent corporal punishments that occur in educational institutions in Taiwan, and issues of workplace bullying. Indeed, issues of workplace bullying have become more widely discussed in recent months after the death of Yen Huai-shing, deputy representative at the Office of Trade Negotiations, at the age of 53 in March. After her death, allegations that Yen faced workplace bullying emerged.
In the wake of these and similar incidents, the Ministry of Labor has announced a new section to the Occupational Safety and Health Act that would address workplace bullying. The new measures stipulate different measures for companies of varying sizes, although it is expected that employers will push back against some of the new measures with the view that they infringe upon their ability to manage workers.
Still, when it comes to issues with coaching, it is to be noted that professional athletes are sometimes not understood as workers. In this sense, even as issues of abusive behavior from coaches or graft among sporting officials have increasingly been criticized in past years, social discussion of issues facing athletes has not always understood that they are workplace issues facing workers. It is to be seen if there is greater understanding of this fact in the future.