The Seibu Lions paid 170 managers and others in supervisory posts at amateur baseball teams monetary rewards for acquiring new players over a period of 27 years until 2005, a committee investigating the Pacific League ballclub's improper scouting money deals said Wednesday.
The scandal-hit team also paid a combined 61.6 million yen under the table to five more amateur baseball players before the issuance in 2005 of professional baseball's declaration of ethical conduct, the committee said in its interim report.
It is the first revelation in which a professional baseball team was found to have had organizationally been engaged in improper conduct over such a long duration involving activities to scout amateur players.
Acting Lions owner Hidekazu Ota said, "We would like to humbly accept (the committee's findings). We will steadily create a system to prevent similar incidents from happening again."