The national baseball league said yesterday it has suspended a team over match-fixing claims that may also force the closure of the side.
“The dmedia T-Rex has been suspended and its remaining matches have been cancelled,” Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) said in a statement.
“We offer our deepest apologies to fans and we appreciate prosecutors’ efforts to prevent gangsters from getting involved in professional baseball,” it said.
The league, founded in 1989, is reduced to five teams after dmedia’s suspension.
The announcement came after the league fired three players and the team coach after they were questioned by prosecutors over the allegations this week.
The four were identified as US pitcher Cory Bailey, team-mates Chen Ke-fan, Chen Yuan-chia and coach Wu Chao-hui, the CPBL said.
“From now on, the four will be banned from playing in the league permanently,” a league spokesman said, adding that they were facing a fine.
The move came a day after prosecutors searched 22 locations and questioned 15 suspects including the three players, the coach, two team officials and members of a notorious bookies group.
The three players were released on bail while Wu, the aide to the Media chief executive officer, and four bookies were arrested for further questioning.
The prosecutors said they suspected T-Rex management officials had colluded with players and bookies to fix league games.
According to the prosecutors, Wu and Lin Bin-wen, the head of a gambling ring who is also the head of the group that owns the team, gave instructions to the pitcher and other players on how to play in order to produce game results according to their plans, so that the ring could net huge winnings from their bets.
T-Rex was formerly called Macoto Cobras but was renamed earlier this year after it was taken over by dmedia Corp.
Sports analysts warn the scandal could deal another blow to the nation’s professional baseball league, which has already suffered a sharp decline in attendances after a string of game-rigging scandals.
A scandal that erupted in 1996, the worst in the history of the sport here, led to the disbanding of the China Times Eagles.
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