Shohei Ohtani says he never bet on sports, ‘shocked’ by scandal| Top Vip News

Big leagues

By Christian Arnold and Ryan Glass Piegel

Shohei Ohtani expressed shock and sadness over the betting scandal involving his longtime performer, Ippei Mizuhara, while vehemently denying any knowledge of Mizuhara’s debt and stating that he “never bet on baseball or any other sport.” .

“This whole thing has been a complete lie,” Ohtani said through his interpreter.

Ohtani read a prepared statement to reporters Monday afternoon at Dodgers Stadium before an exhibition game against the Angels, refusing to answer questions from the media, in his first public comments since his now-former interpreter was linked to the alleged illegal bookie Mathew Bowyer and allegedly having gambling debts of $4.5 million.

“Until a couple of days ago, I didn’t know this was happening,” Ohtani said through his new interpreter, Will Ireton. “Ippei has been stealing money from my account and telling lies.”

He added: “I want to make it clear that I never bet on sports nor have I intentionally sent money to the bookmaker.”

Ohtani said he didn’t know about the gambling debt until the Dodgers held a team meeting after their first game against the Padres last week in Seoul, South Korea, and that’s when the pieces started to fall into place for the star. the Dodgers, whose lawyers said last week was “the victim of a massive theft.”

Monday marked the first comments Ohtani has made since the murky story broke last week about Mizuhara losing millions of dollars to Bowyer and funds being transferred out of Ohtani’s account to cover debts.

The Los Angeles Times and ESPN broke the crazy story last Wednesday, reporting that Mizuhara had been accused of stealing “millions” from Ohtani.

Mizuhara has not been charged with any crime.

Later that day, ESPN added to the already strange story, reporting that a Dodgers spokesperson had said that the Dodgers slugger had transferred $4.5 million to Bowyer to cover Mizuhara’s debts and had made Mizuhara available from the media for an official interview.

Then, however, Ohtani’s camp “disavowed” Mizuhara’s account of what had happened.

ESPN later reported that the confusion had apparently occurred because Ohtani’s team had been relying on Mizuhara’s version of events before realizing what had happened.

Ohtani confirmed on Monday that Mizuhara had been trying to mislead him and his team and said he “started to feel like something was wrong” when Mizuhara was addressing the team, even though Ohtani did not have a translator with him at the time.

Ohtani and Mizuhara met face to face later that day at their hotel and that’s when the extent of what was happening really hit home, the two-way star said.

“That’s when I found out I was in huge debt,” Ohtani said of the meeting. “During that meeting it was revealed to me that Ippei admitted that he was sending money using my account to the betting house. At that time what was happening was something absurd and at that time I contacted my representatives. When I was finally able to talk to my representatives, that’s when my representatives discovered that Ippei had been lying the whole time. That’s when I started contacting the Dodgers and my lawyers.

“And the Dodgers and the lawyers at that time also discovered that they had been lied to.”

Mizuhara also worked as Ohtani’s translator during her Angels tenure, and the two had been close friends in addition to their working relationship.

Parts of Mizuhara’s past have been left in doubt, as The Athletic reported that he did not attend UC Riverside in college, as his old Angels bio stated, nor did he work for the Red Sox, as previous outlets reported.

Mizuhara told ESPN that he bet on sports like soccer and football but never on baseball.

“I’m very sad and surprised that someone I trusted did this,” Ohtani said of Mizuhara.

Ohtani signed a 10-year contract with the Dodgers worth $700 million this offseason, with $680 million of the money deferred until after the end of the contract.