IBAF president vows to bring baseball back to 2020 Olympics

Feb 4, 2010, 14:16 GMT

Taipei - The head of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) on Thursday hopes to re-install baseball as an Olympics sport at the 2020 Games.

IBAF President Riccardo Fraccari expressed the wish while meeting with Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou.

'The exclusion of baseball from the 2012 Olympics has caused great damage to the baseball sport. The IBAF must adopt new strategies and new actions to bring back baseball to the 2020 Olympics,' he said.

Fraccari is visiting baseball nations to seek support for the sport's return to the Olympics Games. He has already been to Japan, and will visit the baseball associations of South Korea and the United States.

He hoped that baseball federations in various countries and IBAF can join hands in promoting baseball as an international sport to allow it a return to the Olympics in the future.

Baseball was an Olympic sport 1992-2008 and a demonstration sport at some earlier Games. The International Olympic Committee has voted baseball out of the programme for 2012 and 2016.

Ma told Fraccari that baseball is Taiwan's national sport, so Taiwan gives full support to baseball's return to the Olympic Games.

Ma said Taiwan's baseball was hurt by match-fixing scandals last year, but the government is trying to revive by it budgeting 1.5 billion Taiwan dollars (47 million US dollars), inviting the Los Angels Dodgers to visit Taiwan in March, and applying to host the 17th Continental Baseball Championship later this year.