The Taiwan Beer Leopards have fired shooting guard Lo Chen-feng (羅振峰) after he admitted to betting on games in Taiwan’s semi-professional Super Basketball League (SBL) last year, the T1 League said on Tuesday.
The Leopards said in a statement that Lo admitted his actions to the franchise on Monday evening, four days after all staff were asked to sign an affidavit saying that anyone found to have broken related rules would be dismissed with immediate effect.
The Leopards said that the franchise has “zero tolerance” for actions lacking in sportsmanship, and apologized to the public for the negative impression Lo has caused.
Photo: Taipei Times
The T1 League issued a statement indicating that the Leopards had notified it of the incident.
It criticized Lo’s behavior, urging all players in the league to learn from his case.
The T1 League said that it would hold a disciplinary committee meeting and investigate the matter.
Lo was selected by the Leopards in the first round of the 2021 summer draft and finished his rookie season with and average of 10 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists over 12 games. The Leopards signed him on a four-year NT$12 million (US$371,046) contract, making him the highest-paid local player on the team.
Lo made the admission a week after Chinese-language Mirror Media reported that SBL player Wu Chi-ying (吳季穎) was allegedly involved in game fixing.
Wu played for the Yulon Luxgen Dinos in the 2022-2023 season and was under contract with Taiwan Beer’s SBL team at the time.
Amid evidence leaked to the media were screenshots of conversations discussing game fixing between Wu and a T1 League player referred to as L, which Mirror Media on Tuesday identified as Lo.
Mirror Media said that the exchange had taken place on April 28, rather than last year as Lo claimed.
Wu was reportedly fired by the Dinos in June on suspicion of game fixing and amid allegations that he had secretly sold two luxury watches belonging to late Yulon Group CEO Kenneth Yen (嚴凱泰).
He was released on NT$250,000 bail on Oct. 18 after being questioned by prosecutors, and is restricted from changing his residence as part of the bail arrangement.
The same day, despite no formal ruling being made, the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association announced that all leagues in Taiwan were banned from signing Wu.
Asked about Lo’s case, the association said that he was involved in gambling, not game fixing.
It would follow related regulations and rules to decide whether to hold a disciplinary committee meeting, and would do so as soon as possible, the association said.
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