TAIPEI: Taiwan's football association said Tuesday it had been fined by the sport's Asian governing body for failing to stop fans displaying a pro-independence flag at an international competition.
The flag featured Taiwan coloured green, an image widely used by pro-independence groups. It was displayed at a stadium in the southern city of Kaohsiung on June 2 during an Asian Cup qualifier between Taiwan and Cambodia.
"Our staff tried to persuade the fans to remove the flag, but they simply wouldn't listen. As there is not a law to bar them from doing this, we could do little about it," Justine Chen, the Chinese Taipei Football Association's secretary general, told AFP.
"According to the evidence we collected at the site, the fans were also displaying slogans that read 'Taiwan independence' and 'Taiwan is not Chinese Taipei'."
The association was fined $5,000 by the Asian Football Confederation, which cited FIFA rules banning any political, religious or abusive slogans during international football competitions.
The Hong Kong Football Association was also fined by FIFA this year after fans booed the Chinese national anthem before a home game against China last November.
Names and titles are highly sensitive in the diplomatic tug-of-war which Taiwan and China have been waging since 1949, when the two sides split at the end of a civil war.
Taiwan lost its membership of the United Nations to China in 1971.
Under pressure from Beijing, athletes from Taiwan have since 1984 competed under the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag instead of the flag of "Republic of China" -- Taiwan's official title.
However the compromise arrangement is rejected by pro-independence groups in Taiwan, which demand the island be referred to simply as "Taiwan" on international occasions, despite repeated harsh warnings from Beijing.
The colour green has long been associated with the island's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which came to power earlier this year.