Japanese athletes caught in sex storm
Four Japanese basketball players have been sent home from the Asian Games for allegedly paying prostitutes for sex, the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) said on Monday.
The players were spotted in a notorious red light district of Jakarta in their national jerseys last week, JOC officials told a media conference, saying the quartet was ordered to leave immediately.
News that Yuya Nagayoshi, Takuya Hashimoto, Takuma Sato, Keita Imamura had been booted out of the Games will come as a major embarrassment for Japan, which was forced to send a swimmer home from the 2014 Asiad in South Korea for stealing a journalist's camera.
"I just feel a sense of shame," Japan chef-de-mission Yasuhiro Yamashita told reporters.
"We deeply apologize and intend to give the athletes thorough guidance from now on."
The basketball players had dinner after leaving the Games village and are believed to have been solicited by touts on the street to go to a hotel with women, Yamashita added.
"I would like to humbly apologize to the Japanese public, the JOC and everyone who supports basketball for this deplorable incident," Japan basketball chief Yuko Mitsuya said in a statement.
"We will decide on the appropriate punishment for the four players once we have heard all the facts.
"We need to work harder to make sure this kind of scandal 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 a journalist's camera.
At those same Games, an Iranian official was kicked out for the verbal sexual harassment of a female volunteer, and a Palestinian soccer player was accused of groping a female worker at the athletes' village.
In April, at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, a Mauritian official was accused of sexually assaulting a female athlete during a photoshoot.
Organizers say about 18,000 athletes and officials are visiting Jakarta and co-host city Palembang for the Asiad.
AFP
