President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday promised to improve the scandal-plagued professional baseball environment and help develop the national sport.
Ma said the government would work toward saving professional baseball by making it free of gambling fraud.
“Professional baseball is not at fault,” he said. “It is those who abuse the sport that are wrong.”
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Ma made the remarks in Taichung while attending a sports event held by National Chung Hsing University to mark the 90th anniversary of its founding yesterday.
Ma said because baseball was the national sport, his government would do whatever it could to support the development of professional baseball and protect it from being corrupted by “external forces.”
Ma also urged athletes to be honest, saying that it was a pity if professional baseball players were involved in betting scandals because if they are found guilty, they would likely never play again.
The nation’s first professional league was inaugurated in 1989. The joy was short-lived, however, after a major betting scandal and the creation of another league resulted in fewer fans.
In April this year, the Executive Yuan approved a four-year, NT$1.26 billion (US$38.6 million) proposal to boost the sport. Under the proposal, each of the four teams in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) will be subsidized NT$10 million a year to set up lower league teams that play at least 60 games in a regular season.
The government will gradually establish an amateur baseball league, lifting the number of amateur teams from two to 12, the proposal said. Nine more amateur teams would be formed by local governments and state-owned businesses. The government will also offer colleges and high schools NT$10 million each to hold competitions every year to cultivate athletic skills, the proposal said.
The government plan at the time was made under public pressure following the lackluster performance of Taiwan’s baseball team at the World Baseball Classic.
Taiwan’s baseball team returned home after they were eliminated from the competition following losses to South Korea and China. The team’s loss to China marked the second defeat to the country in a year.
At a separate setting yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the government would not sit by and watch baseball weaken or disappear because it is the national sport.
Promising to hold those who fix games legally responsible, Wu said the government would work to create a clean environment for baseball development.
“Cronies will not be eliminated without their masterminds being hunted down,” Wu said when approached by reporters for comment.
Wu did not propose any concrete measures yesterday, except saying that granting tax breaks to companies to encourage their sponsorship of baseball teams could be one measure.
On Tuesday, the Sports Affairs Council will meet with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Education and the four baseball teams to map out a recovery plan.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
Also See: CPBL president slams prosecutors
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS