JAKARTA – Four Japanese basketball players have been sent home from theAsian Games in disgrace for allegedly paying prostitutes for sex, theJapanese Olympic Committee (JOC) said Monday.
The players were spotted in a notorious red light district of Jakarta intheir national jerseys last week, JOC officials told a press conference,saying the quartet had been ordered to leave immediately.
News that Yuya Nagayoshi, Takuya Hashimoto, Takuma Sato, Keita Imamura hadbeen booted out will come as a major embarrassment for Japan, who wereforced to send a swimmer home from the last Asian Games in 2014 forstealing a journalist´s camera.
“I just feel a sense of shame,” Japan´s chef de mission Yasuhiro Yamashitatold reporters.
“We deeply apologise and intend to give the athletes thorough guidance fromnow on.”
The basketball players had dinner after leaving the Games village and arebelieved to have been solicited by touts on the street to go to a hotelwith women, Yamashita added.
“I would like to humbly apologise to the Japanese public, the JOC andeveryone who supports basketball for this deplorable incident,” Japanbasketball chief Yuko Mitsuya said in a statement.
“We will decide on the appropriate punishment for the four players once wehave heard all the facts. We need to work harder to make sure this kind ofscandal does not happen again.”
Japanese swimmer Naoya Tomita was expelled from the Asian Games in Incheon,South Korea, four years ago after being caught on video stealing ajournalist´s camera.
It´s also far from being the first case of sexual misconduct at a majormultisports event, which typically draw thousands of athletes, officialsand fans from around the world.
At the 2014 Asian Games, an Iranian official was kicked out for the verbalsexual harassment of a female volunteer, and a Palestinian footballer wasaccused of groping a female worker at the athletes´ village.
In April, at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, a Mauritianofficial was accused of sexually assaulting a female athlete during a photoshoot.
Organisers say about 18,000 athletes and officials are visiting Jakarta andco-host city Palembang for the Asian Games, a regional Olympics featuring40 sports. – APP/AFP