SPORTS BRIEFS

FOOTBALL

Koo Ja-cheol to be sidelined for next game due to injury

Korean midfielder for the Bundesliga’s FC Augsburg Koo Ja-cheol will be sidelined during the next league match because of an ankle injury, according to the report by the club.

Koo, who scored an equalizer against SV Werder Bremen on Monday and was selected into the Team of the Week, reportedly suffered an ankle injury during the match. Although he played through the game, Koo was diagnosed after the match having pulled the ligament on his ankle.

Jeon Ga-eul, first Korean female to play in U.S., returns

Jeon Ga-eul, the first Korean female football player to play in the United States, is to return to the domestic league.

The 28-year-old veteran forward started out her career with Suwon FMC in 2009 before moving to Hyundai Steel Red Angels, a team she played for from 2011 to 2015. After 2015, she joined the Western New York Flash of the National Women’s Soccer League before she was waived by the Flash in June last year. Jeon also represented Korea in 70 games in which she netted 33 goals in total.

BASEBALL

Korea hands in its final roster for WBC

The final roster for Korea for the upcoming World Baseball Classic was submitted to the World Baseball Classic, INC., the top governing body of World baseball tournament Tuesday.

The Korean national baseball team, which is led by manager Kim In-sik, will be going to the international tourney slated to start in March without most of Korean major leaguers. Oh Seung-hwan, a closer from the St. Louis Cardinals, is the only big leaguer on the team.

WINTER OLYMPICS

Athletes head to Sapporo for Asian Winter Games

Korean winter sport athletes headed to Sapporo, Japan, for Asian Winter Games, will be staying at the Sapporo Prince Hotel instead of the APA Hotel and Resort.

The move comes after the rising controversy involving APA Hotel that the hotel provided books in its rooms which denied Japan’s involvement in sex slavery during World War II and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

The 2017 Asian Winter Games are slated for February 19 to 26.