New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) yesterday accused the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA) of being motivated by profits when organizing competitions in recent years.
At the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee session on Wednesday, Hsu said the CTBA kept fraudulent books and had failed to report gate sales from three warm-up games with Cuba’s national team prior to the World Baseball Classic last month.
Citing an accounting report submitted by the CTBA, Hsu said that it had concealed ticket proceeds from the warm-up series for its own profit and accused the association of financial irregularities and accounting fraud over the past few years.
“The Sports Administration gave NT$53.51 million [US$1.76 million] to the CTBA for this year’s world classic, so where is the money from gate sales? Was it used for the players’ medical insurance and other expenses?” he asked.
“The CTBA treats the national team as its own property. Put another way, the CTBA is using the national team as a tool for illegal profiteering,” Hsu said as he questioned Sports Administration Director-General Lin Te-fu (林德福).
He said Lin and other Sports Administration officials accepted all statements and accounting reports from the CTBA at face value.
“I ask you to scrutinize the association’s finances closely, and do not accept them with quiet acquiescence. All the income and leftover funds from the World Classic must be spent with proper oversight on the players and the development of baseball,” he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) also criticized government officials and the Sports Administration for using public money to subsidize the association without checking its books.
“Our government gives millions of dollars to these bodies in the public interest and for grassroots sports development, but the officials have not done their job in demanding transparency and accountability. We need to know if this money was squandered, or if some people are profiting from it,” Chen said.
The controversy was a hot topic on online sports chat rooms yesterday, with Hsu continuing to demand the association come clean on its finances, provide audited accounting reports with detailed itemization and convene meetings to assess the national squad’s three straight defeats in the World Classic.
Many netizens praised Hsu and the NPP for scrutinizing the alleged mismanagement, and endorsed more sports reforms, including restructuring of other governing bodies.
Others called for more DPP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians to get behind Hsu in seeking transparency in accounting as well as internal operations and the selection of executives.
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