Four Japanese basketball players have been sent home from the Asian Games after it emerged they paid women for sex during their time there.
The players went out in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta in team uniforms, before then being solicited by touts to go back to their hotel with some women.
‘Sense of Shame’
The Asian Games opened in the Indonesian capital on Saturday and run until 2 September.
“I feel a sense of shame,” Japan’s chef de mission Yasuhiro Yamashita said.
“We deeply apologise and intend to give the athletes thorough guidance from now on.”
The basketball competition began before Saturday’s opening ceremony. The apparent incident happened following a win over Qatar on Thursday.
It seems that after meeting a Japanese speaking local, they went to a bar where they were told they could meet women.
They spent a few hours there before checking into a hotel with four ladies.
“The players flew back home at their own expense,” Yamashita said, adding that the remaining eight squad members would continue in the competition.
“The athletes should be role models of society, not only in the sporting venues but also on other occasions,” said the chef de mission.
Over the Top, or Acceptable?
I have to say, this seems a little over the top. Guys need sex, and as long as they aren’t letting that get in the way of their performance, then where is the problem? If they have got pissed up in the bar before they met these girls that would be more of an issue for me, but as I haven’t read about that I will take a leap of faith and say that they were sober.
I was reading Toni Scumacher’s autobiography earlier in the year. You know, the keeper who wiped out that French lad in the football world cup of 1982 in the most famous foul ever? This book was from 1987 and even back then he was saying that players should be allowed to see sex workers.
The only trouble I can see is that maybe some unscrupulous sex workers may sell their stories to the press, but as most are professionals who would see their business damaged if they pulled that performance, then it is less likely than if you got down and dirty with some regular woman from a nightclub.
There just seems to be a puritanical thing about sex workers, like they are a sub-class of people, and anyone who goes with them disgraces themselves, and in this case, their nation.
I hope that as a society we get rid of these preconceptions of people and the industry. It is a shame for people, like the Japanese players, to get their dreams destroyed for such an incident.
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