The Korean women's pro basketball league said Tuesday it will mete out a lifetime ban to an American player who is suspected of forging documents.
The Women's Korean Basketball League Commissioner Shin Sun-woo told reporters after its board meeting that Chelsey Lee will be suspended for life and her records in the league will be annulled. Lee's two agents, who are accused of forging Lee and her father's birth certificates last year, will also face indefinite suspensions, he added.
Local prosecutors last month announced that her certificates were fake, and the person listed as Lee's deceased grandmother was not a blood relation. The prosecutors added that the birth certificate Lee submitted as her father's was also fabricated, saying the person on the document doesn't even exist.
During the 2015-2016 season, Lee, who claimed her paternal grandmother was a Korean, played for Bucheon KEB Hana Bank in the WKBL, averaging 15.2 points and 10.4 rebounds per game to win the Rookie of the Year.
Shin added the Bucheon KEB Hana Bank's last season results will be also revoked. The club finished second in the six-team league and reached the championship series where they lost to Woori Bank Hansae.
The commissioner said that the WKBL will scrap its rule on players of Korean descent. Under the league's regulations, foreigners who have Korean parents or grandparents can play in the league as overseas Koreans. The WKBL teams can each have up to two foreign players, but overseas Koreans don't count toward that quota.
Meanwhile, the Bucheon KEB Hana Bank said the club owner Chang Seung-chul and head coach Park Jong-chun will resign from their positions, although the court has not given its rulings yet.
Following her performance last season, Lee was recommended for special naturalization by the Korea Basketball Association and the Korean Olympic Committee, so that she could help Korea qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games. The Ministry of Justice, however, asked prosecutors to investigate her in April, saying some of the documents provided by her seem to have been doctored. (Yonhap)
