February 25, 2015
EC Members of Baseball Federation of Asia Approves 2015 Tournament Plans
2015 Asian Championship slated in Taichung from September 16 to 20.
All the Executive Committee Members from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and Chinese Taipei, met in Taipei on February 9, 2015, approved 2015 tournament and training plans and were updated on the current prospect of inclusion of baseball/softball in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Seid Khawar Sha - West Asia Development Executive Director, and officials from KBA, BFJ, BFA and CTBA also contributed the discussions of the EC meeting.
President Tom Peng praised ongoing efforts by VP Yoshinobu Suzuki who is leading the reinstatement campaign in Japan under close coordination with World Baseball Softball Confederation President Ricardo Fraccari and reminded the EC members that 2015 is the important Year for Asian and World Baseball and BFA has a long way to go. Main resolutions of the conference were as follows:
- 2015 Asia Championship will be played by 6 countries from September 16 to 20 in Taichung. The event had been scheduled in Tianjin, China.
- 2015 East Asia Cup will be played in Djakarta, Indonesia from May 4 to 10. This had been originally planned in the Philippines. Request by Sri Lanka to play in East Asia region instead of West Asia was approved in 2015 provided for review by BFA regarding their future status.
- West Asia Cup will be played by 5 countries in Islamabad, Pakistan from February 23 to 27
- Participating teams in the 2015 U15 BFA Championship in Japan will be known about 2 months before the scheduled date. President Tom Peng requests OC not to plan double header, but to play a single game by each team.
- Umpire Clinic will be conducted in Taipei in October, 2015 with total participants of 40, half of which will come from Chinese Taipei.
- The next EC meeting and BFA Congress will be held in Taichung on September 21, 2015 immediately after the Asian Championship.
(By BFJ)
