The Nippon Professional Baseball is unwinding its strict guidelines, all for the sake of finally ending the gambling scandal that hit the Japanese baseball league.
Early today, the organization announced it will offer limited suspension to member’s players or team personnel who would come forward and admit their involvement in betting on pro baseball games, Japan Today reported.
There’s a due date: those involved have to admit on or before April 25.
It was the league’s investigations body that suggested for the NPB’s Executive Committee to take remarkable procedures that will encourage people to voluntarily disclose participation in banking on baseball.
Under Article 180 of the Professional Baseball Agreement, players who gamble on baseball online games and or associate with criminal gangs, or yakuza, go through a ban that could last from one year to an indefinite amount of time.
Those who confess to gambling normally deal with a baseball restriction from one to five years at the commissioner’s discretion. With the brand-new NPB instruction, individuals who reveal genuine repentance might have their indefinite suspensions modified to one year, with the possibility of punishment being rescinded at that point.
Theoretically, if there are players who are clashed, it’s needed to create an environment where it’s simple to speak up, stated NPB Commissioner Katsuhiko Kumazaki, according to the report.
Gambling on baseball video games in Japan emerged in 2014, when three pitchers from the Yomiuri Giants Satoshi Fukuda, ShokiKasahara, and Ryuya Matsumoto were found to have banked on professional and high school games, while also playing mahjong and golf for money.
The scandal was reignited last month, when a fourth Giants games, pitcher Kyosuke Takagi, likewise admitted to betting on professional online games.
Takagi received a one-year suspension due to his limited participation to gambling and because he cooperated with the investigators. The three gamers prior to him, on the other hand, were prohibited for life from playing baseball.
The gambling scandal has likewise triggered three of Yomiuri Giants top officials to resign from their positions.