ⓒYONHAP News

The Korea Baseball Organization(KBO), South Korea's professional baseball league, has been forced to suspend its ongoing regular season after a number of players and staff at various teams tested positive for COVID-19.

The decision came after an emergency board meeting with heads of all ten clubs on Monday.

After heated discussions that lasted for over three hours, the participants decided to postpone all 30 games scheduled from Tuesday to Sunday, as well as 35 games in the minor Futures League set for Tuesday to next Wednesday.

The KBO plans to resume the regular season on August 10 as it is scheduled to have a break for the Olympics from next Monday to August 9.

Four NC Dinos players and two of their acquaintances were found to have violated COVID-19 quarantine regulation, leading to the outbreak.

According to Seoul's Gangnam district on Wednesday, the athletes in question are Park Sok-min, Park Min-woo, Kwon Hui-dong and Lee Myung-ki. All but Park Min-woo have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a statement, Park Sok-min admitted that he invited an acquaintance and that person’s friend to join him and his three teammates for chicken and beer in a Gangnam hotel room on July 5, despite the gathering ban in the metro area.

When the acquaintance later tested positive, Park said he immediately notified his team, which then informed the league office.

While Park claimed he fully cooperated with authorities, the Gangnam office filed a complaint, accusing three of the players of giving false accounts and hindering proper contact tracing.

All four players were given a 72-game ban on Friday, effectively taking them out of the league for the rest of the year as the Dinos only have 70 games left to play.

Park Min-woo was expected to head to Tokyo this week as part of the national Olympic baseball team, but had to recuse himself from the national team because of the incident. NC Dinos general manager Kim Jong-moon has also been suspended.