“Up to 1.4 billion…more baseball free agent money.”

There have been allegations in Congress of widespread backroom deals in the free agent signing process for professional baseball players.

There have been several cases of discrepancies between publicly announced player salaries and the amounts listed in contracts.

Reporter Park Gun-young.

[Reporter]
In March of this year, Jang Jeong-seok, the former manager of the KIA Tigers, was fired.

He was found to have twice asked for the difference in salary while discussing a contract extension with catcher Park Dong-won last year.

The case is being investigated by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.

Suspicions have been raised in the National Assembly that there are several separate cases.

Players and clubs are required to draw up a unified contract and submit it to the KBO governor, but it is alleged that there are cases where the published player salary and contract contents are different.

[Yoo Jung-joo / Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker]
“There are differences between the total amount of money and options, ranging from as much as 1.4 billion won to as little as 50 million won, and the contract contents.”

It is alleged that during the FA contract process, a club official signed a double contract with the player without the player’s knowledge, raised the player’s price, and then pocketed the difference.

The player said he learned of the allegations through a police investigation.

토토사이트
“Player A neither asked for nor gave money from the club officials, but he was suspected by the police because of the club’s ‘self-funding’.”

The player, who is now retired from active play, reportedly complained that he was suspected of paying off the team because of the contract.

The KBO responded to the allegations by saying, “We don’t know,” and that they will be answered by Heo Gu-yeon, who will appear tomorrow as a witness for the National Audit of the Committee on Culture, Sports and Tourism.