STTA Exco standing by Lee Bee Wah: Who is going to foot their legal fees if Liu Guodong decides to sue?
According to the Straits TImes, the Singapore Table Tennis Association’s (STTA) executive committee have reached an agreement on how to handle the ongoing dispute with former national coach Liu Guodong.
The committee members, of whom 3 are grassroots leaders from Lee Bee Wah’s ward, Nee Soon South, are unanimous in their decision to support Lee Bee Wah.
We can’t stop other’s actions, but we will support our president,’ STTA vice-president Han Hgge Juan told Shin Min Daily yesterday. The paper also reported that the association was prepared to face legal action from Liu.
The dispute started three weeks ago, following comments Ms Lee made regarding Liu’s omission from this year’s Singapore Sports Awards.
Liu, who led the women’s team to a historic Olympic silver medal last year, felt that his character had been called into question by her remarks.
He had flown in from China and spent a fruitless five days here trying to resolve the dispute with the STTA over a week ago. Before he left, Liu told reporters that he had not ruled out taking legal action against the association.
Though STTA did not nominate Liu for the award, it did not give its reasons for doing so. It was Lee Bee Wah who made the baseless allegations against Liu which she is still unable to substantiate now.
STTA should have distanced itself from Lee’s remarks in the first place instead of embroiling itself in an unnecessary controversy not to their doing.
As a leader, it is a shame that Lee Bee Wah lacked the decency to take personal responsibility for her words and instead chose to drag a national sports association funded by taxpayers’ monies into the mudslinging.
The case does not need to go to the courts at all.
If Lee Bee Wah felt she has strong evidence to justify her claims that Liu Guodong lacks professionalism and integrity in his work, state so openly in public and let Singaporeans judge for themselves. Singaporeans will surely rally to her side if there are compelling reasons for her to deny Liu the “Coach of the year” award and Liu will have little choice but to back off.
However, if Lee Bee Wah is unable to substantiate her allegations, she should retract her statement and issue an open apology to him in the papers thereby closing the unfortunate episode.
Liu Guodong has already indicated that he only wants to seek redress to clear his name in public and the legal route is only a last resort for him to resolve the impasse if all else fails.
Any reasonable person would not have lent support to Lee Bee Wah’s desperate attempt to hide behind STTA to save her own skin. The entire fiasco was sparked off solely by her and she herself should handle it instead of keeping mum on the matter and pretending nothing has happened.
Now since STTA has stuck its neck out and ratified Lee Bee Wah’s initial statements made about Liu which are deemed potentially defamatory in nature by many lawyers interviewed by the press, the entire executive committee of STTA will be held liable in a defamation suit against Lee Bee Wah (thanks to Zheng Xi for the lead)
In 1995, the entire Workers’ Party CEC was sued for defamation for an article published in the Tamil language “Hammer” allegedly impuging on the integrity of Indian PAP MPs.
More recently in 2006, SDP’s CEC was sued collectively by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew for an article in its newsletter Singapore Democrat which compares the modus operandi of the Singapore government unfavorably to the National Kidney Foundation.
The legal repercussions and complicities involved should the matter be hauled up to courts may be a possible reason for the recent departure of STTA’s CEO Chew Soon Sheng and another unverified committee member.
Now should Liu really initiate legal proceedings against STTA either in Singapore or China, who will foot the legal fees of STTA? Will STTA be dipping into its coffers to fight the case? Since every single cent used to fund STTA’s operations come from Singaporeans, STTA should inform us if it is going to use public funds for this purpose.
I sincerely implore the committee members of STTA to review their decisions to support Lee Bee Wah. You are only serving the organization on a voluntary basis. It is not you who made the accusations against Liu Guodong. Why should you take the rap for your president? For the sake of yourself and your family, you should dissociate from Lee’s words and actions.
If you persist in your decision to defend her to the point of going to the courts, then you should be prepared to fork out the legal fees on your own. It will be treason to make misuse public funds for such a frivolous fracas which is entirely preventable in the first place.
I hereby call on the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports, Singapore Sports Council and other relevant authorities to conduct an inquiry into possible mismanagement of STTA by its President Lee Bee Wah which has brought disrepute and shame to the sports fraternity and Singaporeans as a whole.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=28839.63
No comments:
Post a Comment