SOUTH KOREA – The Korean Baseball Organization’s attempt to be the one to choose its own chairman has been thwarted by inappropriate meddling on the part of the Lee Myung-bak administration.

Yu Yeong-gu, the chairman of the board of the Myongji Medical Foundation announced on Monday that he is withdrawing himself from the process after being chosen as KBO’s chairman at a meeting of team owners.

An aide told Yonhap News that Yu “realizes that professional baseball has to have a good relationship with the government, and figured there was no need to have friction in the relationship. So he decided to step out. He said he hopes the organization will chose someone even “better suited” for the job.

It appears that direct pressure from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism led to Yu’s stepping down just six days after being made chairman.  Immediately after Yu was chosen, Choi Jong-hak, the ministry’s director for sports, openly criticized the decision.

The KBO “chose its chairman at a breakfast meeting that was not even an official decision-making body, then took its decision to the media in what was not only inappropriate, but a move that was done without any prior consultation” with the ministry, said Choi, whose comments have led some to wonder whether it was a signal the administration has someone intended for the position, something rumored among individuals close to the administration and ruling party.

Professional baseball owners chose Yu on December 16, in part to stand up to what they saw as the ruling camp’s attempt to “parachute” someone into the position.

Choi denies there was any political pressure leading up to Yu’s resignation.

“There was nothing more or less to what I said at the time.”

Many say the government is going beyond its authority for involving itself in the process. While it is an incorporated foundation under the authority as such of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Korean Baseball Organization receives no financial support from the government.

The ministry’s authority extends to approving the KBO and similar corporations if they provide the proper paperwork, and, with KBO being a sports organization, it is the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism that gets to approve those documents. That makes the government’s invocation of a “common practice” as it tries to determine who gets to be KBO’s chairman reminiscent of a “practice” from a bygone era.

“It is clearly overstepping its authority for the ministry to be bossing baseball around with regard to the owners’ meeting decision on its chairman,” said Jeong Seung-jae, a professor of sports law at Jangan University.
“The selection process should be done independently.”

One team owner said the idea “was to bring in a chairman who is interested and cares about baseball, but that faded away.”

The KBO began in 1982 and the first pitch of the first game played under its sponsorship was thrown by Chun Doo Hwan, the authoritarian president in power at the time.

Courtesy of The Hankyoreh

Tags: South Korea