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Taipei. Taiwan will probe claims that its national baseball squad deliberately lost to China in last year’s Olympics preliminary round in the latest twist of a match-fixing scandal, reports said on Saturday.

Investigators received tip-offs that the island’s team might play to lose before China defeated it 8-7 at the Beijing Olympics last year, the ETTV cable news channel said.

They questioned Richard Yang, a vice president at the lottery-administrating Taipei Fubon Bank, who reportedly got similar information from lottery vendors and gamblers who had contacts with bookies, it said.

It was unclear if the questioning last year yielded any results, but prosecutors are planning to look further into the claims, it added.

The team’s coach, Hung Yi-chung, rejected the allegations.

“Nobody wants to lose to China. If prosecutors think they should investigate they can go ahead, but I don’t see any problem with that match. I choose to believe the players,” he was quoted as saying by the Apple Daily.

Since splitting from China six decades ago, Taiwan has lost to its rival in nearly every sporting arena but prided itself on its prowess in baseball.

That confidence was shattered with the island’s squad suffering humiliating defeats to China in both the Olympics preliminary round and the World Baseball Classic in March.

The latest twist came amid an ongoing probe into match-fixing allegations implicating 23 players, many from the popular Brother Elephants team, during the May-September season.

The case has dealt a new blow to a sport already hit by a string of similar match-fixing scandals that have shocked fans in recent years.

Incidents in 1996, 1997, 2005 and 2008 have led authorities in Taiwan to step up measures to secure the integrity of the island’s favorite sport.


Agence France-Presse