A former Taiwanese baseball star has been ordered to compensate his team NT$6 million (US$203,000) for his role in a match-fixing scandal that rocked the nation two years ago, a court said yesterday.
Pitcher Chang Chih-chia, 32, was found to have hurt the image of his team, La New Bears — since renamed the Lamigo Monkeys — and ordered to pay the hefty settlement, the Greater Taichung District Court said.
The Lamigo team was quoted by the Chinese-language Apple Daily as saying that it hopes the record compensation will serve as a warning to other players.
Sources in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), who asked not to be named, confirmed it was the largest compensation amount ever forced on a player.
Chang was once one of the nation’s brightest sports stars when he joined Japan’s Saitama Seibu Lions in 2002 for a record signing fee of ￥120 million (US$1.3 million) for a Taiwanese player.
However, he was convicted for accepting money from bookies to fix games and received a jail term of two years and two months in a much-publicized trial in 2011.
Five other former professional baseball players and a politician were also found guilty in the same case, and sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years on gambling and fraud charges.
Prosecutors in 2009 started investigating claims that some players received cash, luxury cars and paid-for sexual services from bookies to deliberately lose games.
The case dealt a fresh blow to Taiwanese baseball, which has been hit by a string of similar scandals in recent years.
In 2008, the CPBL banned the dmedia T-Rex team over match-fixing allegations that implicated the team’s management and three of its players, among others.
Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday fought through a second-set slump to post a roller-coaster 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 victory over Damir Dzumhur in his opening match at the Cincinnati Open. The Spaniard, playing his first tournament since losing to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon final, raced through the first set, but completely lost his way in the second, dropping his serve twice against the 33-year-old Bosnian. Alcaraz regained his intensity and cut down his errors in the third set as a seventh ace took him to a match point that was converted when Dzumhur fired wide. “It was just a roller coaster,” said the second
Taiwan’s men’s basketball team on Monday clinched a spot in the FIBA Asia Cup quarter-finals with a 78-64 win over Jordan in Saudi Arabia, securing their best finish in the tournament since placing fourth in 2013. The win was sweet revenge for Taiwan, who were denied a quarter-final spot by Jordan at the same stage of the previous Asia Cup in 2022 after blowing a nine-point lead in the final minute and losing 97-96 on a half-court buzzer-beater. “History is part of the journey,” Taiwan head coach Gianluca Tucci said when asked about the 2022 collapse of the team, who he did
Defending champions Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday led the way into the Cincinnati Open quarter-finals, with Carlos Alcaraz hot on their heels after a straight-sets victory of his own. Sinner shrugged off a mid-match weather delay lasting nearly three hours as he advanced 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) over Adrian Mannarino. Alcaraz, the second seed who has reached the final in his past six tournaments, hammered Italian lucky loser Luca Nardi 6-1, 6-4. After sweeping the opening set in 28 minutes, Alcaraz hit a speed bump, dropping his serve to trail 2-4. He promptly regained the break, then fought through a marathon ninth game
NEXT ROUND: World No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka opened their title defenses with straight-sets wins, while Iga Swiatek and Taylor Fritz also advanced Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka got their title defenses off to smooth starts as they powered into the third round of the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Open on Saturday. The men’s and women’s top seeds, each ranked No. 1 in the world, were both competing for the first time since Wimbledon, where Sinner lifted the title and Sabalenka bowed out in the women’s semi-finals. Sinner crushed Colombian Daniel Elahi Galan 6-1, 6-1 in steamy afternoon weather, while Sabalenka beat 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova 7-5, 6-1 under the lights of the night session. Sabalenka needed 54 minutes and a service break in the final game
RSS