It can happen that you can’t sleep for nights out of sheer excitement and anticipation. Andreas Albert, the team manager of the first division table tennis club TSV Bad Königshofen, felt the same way a little over a year ago when he could hardly wait for the signature of the young Japanese star Yukiya Uda to finally be on his desk. Almost 14 months to the day later, Albert tossed and turned restlessly in his bed because of a transfer from Japan, but this time not out of nervousness. But out of anger and bewilderment. Because the longed-for signatures had long been there, Jin Ueda had been the only entry for the new season since April and had even traveled to Lower Franconia for a sponsorship appointment. But then they noticed in the club that they had forgotten a crucial form – and Ueda is not eligible to play in the first half of the season.
A shitstorm from Japan is now sweeping over the small club in far-off Franconia
They waited a while to make their omission public, first held internal talks, and last Monday the club sent a circular email that ended with the unusual final formula: “Sorry – the TSV management.” Albert now laughs pointedly on the phone. “I’m famous now,” he says, “the fool of the nation.”
There are three formal things to do with such a transfer: the club must sign an employment contract with the player, as well as a license agreement with the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) – and the Bavarian Table Tennis Association must receive a transfer application by the end of May. “This piece of paper has had to go to Munich for 40 years,” says Albert, routine, but in this case of all things, the volunteer management trio relied on the other for various reasons, some of them health. That happened to TTF Ochsenhausen a few years ago with the Frenchman Can Akkuzu, even the then second division football club Jahn Regensburg had made a mistake before his relegation season to register his FC Bayern loan Sarpreet Singh – and that with full-time officials. But of course that’s no consolation in Königshofen.
“We showed last year that we also have such a good team,” says Albert, after all, predecessor Uda had disappointed as a supposed king transfer in the preliminary round, in the second half no more use. But things should be different with Ueda, his experience should be a plus – and his constant availability. Because the 31-year-old is moving to the small town in Lower Franconia with his family, wants to get to know a new culture and stay longer than just a year. The whole family is expected in mid-August, the son is five, the daughter is two, the house in Japan has been sold, the kindergarten places are booked, the new apartment is being prepared. That’s the one aspect that makes the whole thing particularly awkward.
The other: Ueda has a big name in Japan. Although he was once world No. 28 before retiring from the World Cup circuit a few years ago, he never won the big titles, but Albert considers him even more popular than long-time top ten player Jun Mizutani: “It is his whole way of performing.” Ueda commented on the recent World Cup for TV Tokyo, where his move to Germany was also announced; and Bad Koenigshofen’s Japanese club sponsor Akihiko Kotani signed him to their table tennis platform and focused all of their marketing on Ueda. Which is why a Twitter shitstorm is now sweeping over the small club in far-off Franconia in Japan.
“We were all really upset,” says Albert, and Ueda was of course “devastated”. In the meantime, it has been possible to get him a Champions League contract with TTC Wiener Neustadt for the preliminary round – different deadlines apply in Austria. From January he can then play for Bad Königshofen. “He wrote to me that he now also sees this as a challenge,” says Albert, “he immediately turned it into something positive.” A bit of anticipation for the new one has remained despite the mishap.
