The Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) has expelled four players from its Asian Games 2018 basketball team in Jakarta following allegations of misconduct during a night out in notorious Blok M nightlife district.
Reports first surfaced late on Sunday night that the four players, named as Takuya Hashimoto, Keita Imamura, Yuya Nagayoshi and Takuma Sato, had been witnessed behaving inappropriately in a late-night bar, According to South China Morning Post.
At a press conference on Monday, a senior official with the JOC revealed that the players had paid for sex during the night out.
Japanese delegation chief Yasuhiro Yamashita said the players had been stripped of their team membership and sent home immediately.
“The Japan National Olympic Committee decided to withdraw their accreditation and send them back to Japan early this morning,” Yamashita said.
It was also revealed that the players were wearing their team uniforms when they left the athletes’ village and headed to the Blok M area of south Jakarta for a meal following the team’s win over Qatar on Thursday.
After their meal they were reportedly solicited by a Japanese-speaking local who led them to a nearby bar where they drank for a couple of hours before proceeding to a hotel with women where, Yamashita revealed, they went ahead with “such action”.
“A day after our arrival here the Chef de Mission and other top officials told the athletes that they had to be role models in Jakarta,” Yamashita said.
“I deeply apologise to the Japanese people as the head of the delegation,” he added.
Comments