South Korea's baseball governing body said Thursday that foreign players in the local pro league will be subject to drug testing.
"The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and its anti-doping committee agreed to begin drug tests for foreign players within the year," a high-ranking KBO official was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency. "We will decide soon when and how the examination will be administered."
The KBO introduced doping tests for domestic players in 2007 but exempted foreign athletes who strongly refused to be the target of the drug screening. There are 16 foreign players in eight clubs in Korea's professional baseball league.
After U.S. pitcher Daniel Rios, who played in South Korea from 2002 to 2007 and won the Best Player of the Year award in 2007, was ousted from the Japanese baseball league after testing positive for banned substances last year, managers and coaches in South Korea have demanded that the KBO expand the drug test to foreign players.
Existing measures require urine samples be taken randomly from three athletes from each team two times a year. Last year, no athletes tested positive, the KBO said.
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