Friday, October 01, 1999

ASIAN ALL-STAR CHENG CHIH-LUNG HEAD FOR CHINA

Ming-shen Daily, the leading sports newspaper in Taiwan, reported Thursday that Taiwan's top player Cheng Chih-Lung has agreed to a three-month, 30000 USD contract with China's Shanghai Sharks.

Shanghai Sharks did not release any official statement regarding Cheng's signing. It's believed Cheng got the deal with a little help from SINAnet, one of the biggest Chinese internet website company and owns 50% of the Sharks.

Cheng's original contract with three-time CBA champion Hong-kuo Elephants expired on September 1. However Cheng was reluctant to re-sign with Hong-kuo, citing the team's failure in taking care of its players. At 30 years-old, obviously Cheng wants to make the most out of the last few years of his career. Cheng noted another reason he decided to play in China: the CBA's slow development to bring back the league.

Ming-shen Daily reported that Cheng will join the Sharks as soon as November. If the CBA re-open its season on time in March next year, Cheng will consider coming back and sign with any team. Aside from Hong-kuo, Dacin Tigers is also recruiting Cheng hard.

In the meantime, the CBA's re-structure became the latest victim of the Taiwan earthquake, which occured on September 21 and killed more than 2000 people.

Due to the chaos through out the nation, the CBA has to again delay its re-structure schedule. The league is trying to arrange a charity game to donate all incomes to the victims in the quake.

Shin-kwang Group, which is interested in purchasing the Mars, also delayed its Board of Governors meeting indefinitely.