Lawmakers yesterday called on Sports Administration Director-General Lin Te-fu (林德福) to push for reform while prioritizing accountability and transparency, after Lin published an assessment report on the national team’s performance at the World Baseball Classic.
Some legislators said Lin was trying to evade responsibility and cover up problems, and criticized the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA) for its failures in the World Baseball Classic and other recent international tournaments.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) said that the CTBA was “not clean” in its accounting and had concealed NT$70 million (US$2.3 million at the current exchange rate) in revenue from a tournament it managed two years ago.
Huang accused Lin and his predecessors of negligence and collusion with CTBA, since it is the responsibility of the administration to check yearly financial reports from all sports associations.
CTBA’s financial report for the Premier 12 event in November 2015 showed two main revenue sources: ticket proceeds amounting to NT$85.44 million and NT$70 million from the International Baseball Federation for hosting the first round in Taiwan, Huang said.
“However, in CTBA’s subsidy request to the Sports Administration, its main revenue items were NT$55.95 million from ticket proceeds and its own revenue at NT$8.42 million,” Huang said.
He said there was discrepancy of at least NT$70 million and asked Lin: “Where has this money gone? Your agency was responsible for checking financial records, so have the officials done their job?”
New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) also accused Lin and the CTBA of a lack of transparency, financial irregularity and undue political influence by CTBA chairman Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井), who is a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“It is quite an incredible document. The expenditures do not square with each other, but the total revenue and expenditures all came to the same amount at NT$82,385,245. This is just astonishing,” Hsu said, referring to the financial reports obtained by his office.
He also said that NT$7.11 million was missing from CTBA’s 2014 report, as the government’s subsidy that year was NT$66.18 million, but it only listed NT$59.05 million.
In his report, Lin said the national team’s early defeat in the World Baseball Classic was due to conflicts between the CTBA and the Chinese Professional Baseball League, deficiencies in the pitching staff, difficulties in recruiting overseas star players and CTBA crew who were charged with scouting and intelligence-gathering for other national teams.
Lin outlined several recommendations, including a five-year tenure system for national team managers, which does not rule out foreign hires.
Under the current system, managers are hired temporarily for major tournaments.
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