"Hanwha and Kiwoom Players Met at Hotel"... Lies Revealed in Epidemiological Investigation

[Asia Economy Reporter Minji Lee] It was revealed belatedly that the Hanwha Eagles and Kiwoom Heroes professional baseball players, who caused controversy by having a drinking party with outsiders at night, met in the same place.

On the 17th, the Kiwoom and Hanwha teams, while investigating the players in question together with the quarantine authorities, discovered this fact additionally and reported it to the KBO Clean Baseball Center. This concerns two Kiwoom players and two Hanwha players being with outsiders for about 8 minutes at the hotel where the NC Dinos' quarantine controversy occurred. It was revealed that the players lied during the initial epidemiological investigation. Kiwoom stated, "Regarding this matter, the quarantine authorities conducting the epidemiological investigation identified on the morning of that day that the movement paths of our team’s players overlapped briefly with those of players from other teams."

Earlier, two Kiwoom players moved to a hotel in Gangnam, Seoul, after receiving a call from an acquaintance in the early morning of the 5th while staying at the away lodging in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, and had a drinking party. Initially, the players said that there were a total of five people at this gathering, including one senior player and two acquaintances of the senior. Based on this statement, Kiwoom explained that one of their players (Han Hyun-hee) was vaccinated against COVID-19 and thus did not violate the rule prohibiting private gatherings of five or more people.

However, it was later confirmed that Hanwha players were also present at this gathering. Previously, Hanwha revealed through their own investigation that two of their players met with two acquaintances in the room of former professional baseball senior A at the Seoul away lodging, and that they parted ways upon hearing that an acquaintance of A was coming.

However, Hanwha explained, "During the epidemiological investigation, we received information that our players stayed in the same room with players from other teams for about 8 minutes," and added, "After conducting additional interviews with the players, it was confirmed that the epidemiological investigation by the quarantine authorities was accurate."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.