“Are you going to do a full investigation?” lawmaker screams after allegations of payoffs…governor has nothing to say
The 110th National Audit of the Committee on Culture, Sports and Tourism held at the National Assembly on April 24. KBO Commissioner Heo Gu-yeon and Representative Yoo Jung-joo of the Democratic Party of Korea exchanged questions about the alleged backroom dealings of the FA.
Representative Yoo held a press conference on the 23rd to reveal the discrepancies between free agent contracts published in the KBO yearbook and actual contracts, and the fact that a retired former player was unknowingly caught up in a hush money scandal after signing a free agent contract while he was still an active player.
The National Audit Office press conference on the 24th was an extension of this press conference.
Using these examples, Yoo called for the KBO to conduct a “full investigation” of existing contracts.
He said, “Player A signed a free agent contract with a parent club and went on a training camp.
After returning home, he went to the police station instead of going home.
The detective asked him if he had taken money and given it to a club official.
He didn’t even know what the contract was.
What will you do about A’s injustice? It is an unfair case.
He also mentioned the case of Jang Jeong-seok, the former head coach of KIA, who demanded money from Park Dong-won. Jang was banned from baseball for this incident. Yoo said, “There needs to be an investigation.
We need a full investigation. If the KBO has been operating poorly, it will continue to reverberate.
That’s why the Park Dong-won case happened. Backroom deals. Isn’t it a serious crime, and shouldn’t the truth be revealed?” he argued.
He said, “Backroom deals are a major crime. However, the KBO does not have the authority to investigate. I checked with the KBO, and there was no backroom dealing. If Rep. Yoo can provide us with relevant data, we will check further.”
He emphasized that the KBO does not have the power to investigate. Rep. Yoo, on the other hand, insisted that the KBO should take the initiative to investigate to prevent such a serious crime from happening again.
“The KBO should conduct a full investigation into this. They should use their authority to investigate thoroughly. Change all the contracts that the clubs have,” he urged the KBO.
However, there wasn’t much Heo could promise here: “The KBO doesn’t have the power to investigate,” he said.
Representative Yoo then tried to get more promises from Heo through additional questions, but the questioning ended when Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee Chairman Lee Sang-heon (Democratic Party of Korea, Ulsan North District) interrupted, saying that it was not something that could be done right now.
As Heo said, it is not easy for the KBO to investigate all contracts. 안전토토사이트
The KBO does not have the power to investigate. It can request contracts from teams, but it can’t force them to provide them.
Furthermore, teams cannot be penalized for omitting incentives in contracts prior to 2018.
In 2018, the KBO revised its rules to prevent backroom deals after a wave of undeclared cash trades by the Heroes.
Beginning with the 2019 season, all KBO players, including free agents, will be required to disclose in their contracts any special terms and conditions that do not fall under the signing bonus and annual salary.
The KBO will impose sanctions of 1 billion won in fines on clubs and a one-year suspension on players for violating the ban on backroom agreements, along with the loss of the first pick in the following year.
A KBO official said, “There is no action that can be taken even if the contract signed before 2019 is different from the actual contract size and what was disclosed to the KBO.
It is ineffective,” he said, adding, “I think we need to supplement the rules to prevent this from happening in the future.”
The ‘KBO backroom dealing suspicion’ that came out of nowhere seems to have been put to rest. Instead, the actual authority of the KBO needs to be discussed further.