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Sports council chief concerned about ethics

Sports benefit society by integrating and unifying people, National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Chairman Chen Chuan-shou (陳全壽) said yesterday, using the example of the two Taiwanese athletes who won medals at last year's Olympic Games in Athens.

So there is reason for concern about the harm caused to society by the recent game-fixing scandal in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), he said at a press conference.

"After long discussions with leaders of the baseball teams, we have come up with both active and passive ways to deal with team management," Chen said.

"For the active approach, we will enhance ethical education and supervision of players. We will also assign personnel to guard against players' taking performance-enhancing drugs and, of course, any involvement in game fixing," Chen said.

"For the passive approach, which will apply to all athletes -- from baseball to basketball or any other field -- we will cancel the contracts of those involved in gambling immediately and expel them from their league, whether it's a professional or an amateur," Chen said.

He urged to the CPBL to set up a monitoring system as well as a welfare system for players' retirement so that the players can concentrate on their job.

He said tougher legislation is needed to punish players who break the rules.

The council and the CPBL agree that once it appears that a player is deliberately performing poorly, a security defense team from the CPBL will be formed to investigate the player or players.

"Because it's more difficult to educate overseas players, we can only restrain them through their contracts. After cutting the number of overseas players next year, we will find it easier to manage and monitor their behavior," said Hung Jui-he (洪瑞河), deputy CPBL chairman.

The CPBL had previously announced that the number of foreign players on each team will be halved, to two, starting next year.
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