TOKYO (AFP) - Professional baseball in Japan, already deep in debt and embroiled in corruption scandals, was further rocked as champion club Seibu Lions was reported to be seeking a new owner.
The owner of the team, hotel and resort developer Kokudo Corp., has offered it to several potential buyers for up to 25 billion yen (235 million dollars), newspapers and broadcast networks reported over the weekend.
Kokudo is embroiled in a stockmarket scandal that led to its chairman, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, resigning from all his posts in the company and its affiliates last month. He has also quit as owner of the team.
One potential buyer, the reports said, was Internet service provider Livedoor Co. which lost to Japan's biggest Internet shopping mall Rakuten Inc. last week in a bid to win the right to create a new club to fill a void caused by the planned merger of two money-losing clubs in the Pacific League.
The Pacific League, one of two professional divisions in this baseball-crazy country, is made up of six clubs that have been pushed into heavy debt by slumping revenues and soaring salaries for star players.
"The baseball world back in turmoil over Seibu sale offer," a headline in the influential daily Asahi Shimbun said. "There is the possibility that the move will rekindle the reorganisation of the baseball world."
The scandal around Kokudo erupted after it was found to have under-reported its stake in an affiliated railroad operator, Seibu Railway, which was suspected to have exceeded the limit set by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
It led Tsutsumi, known as a confidant of former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, to quit as honorary president of Japan's Olympic committee.
He also gave up his posts as honorary head of the Japan Ice Hockey Federation and as president of the national skiing body.
Last month he resigned as the owner of the Lions, the day after the club won Japan's championship for the first time in 12 years by beating the Chunichi Dragons of the Central League.
The Kokudo affair and another scandal involving scouting bribes have led to the resignation in recent months of the owners of three other clubs, besides Tsutsumi of the Lions, including Tsuneo Watanabe of the Giants.
The planned merger of the ailing Pacific League's Kintetsu Buffaloes and Orix BlueWave, which would leave it with only five clubs, led to the first strike by players in the professional game's 70-year history.
The walk-out in mid-September, supported by a great majority of fans, forced the Nippon Professional Baseball organisation to allow for the creation of the first new club in 50 years, aside from purchases of existing teams.
11/07/2004 - 11:04 GMT - AFP