Former Lotte owner Ikuhiro Kiyota sued Lotte for the contents of the lawsuit and the photos of the affair.

‘We withdrew our lawsuit and settled out of court.

On February 8, former Lotte player Ikuhiro Kiyota, 36, updated his Instagram page to announce that he had settled his lawsuit against Lotte over the termination of his contract.

The baseball team decided to terminate Kiyota’s contract in May 2021. The reason for this, as reported by this magazine, was Mr. Kiyota’s twice disregard for the baseball team’s rules.

The first incident occurred in the fall of 2008 during a tour of Sapporo. He disregarded the team’s rule against eating with outsiders and reporting his daily activities, which had been established to prevent the new coronavirus, and instead dined with a woman he had been having an affair with for three years (January 8, 2021 issue), committing adultery. Furthermore, he covered up his secret meetings with the woman and then made false reports. As a result, the baseball team decided to suspend Kiyota indefinitely.

However, in May of the same year, immediately after his punishment was lifted, “FRIDAY” again reported that he had been having an affair with another woman. He had been having a two-year affair with that woman as well, and on May 12, after his indefinite suspension was lifted and he returned to the second team, he was photographed at the scene of a secret meeting with her.

Four days later, when we directly interviewed Mr. Kiyota himself, he said, “This is going to appear in Friday.

When we asked him directly four days later, he replied, “Is this going to be in Friday? Please give me a break.

-Please talk about it properly.

It doesn’t make any sense to talk about it. It’s my first day back at work. I’m going to die.”

-Is there a counterargument to the point of infidelity?

“It’s not a rebuttal or anything. …… It’s over now. Now the baseball team is fired. My family will also be in trouble. ……”

That is what Mr. Kiyota said. It was only two days after the release of this article (released on May 21, 2021) that the baseball team decided to terminate his contract.

On September 30 of that year, Kiyota filed a lawsuit against Lotte, claiming that the unilateral termination of his contract was an “abuse of the right to dismiss. The four claims were: (1) confirmation of his status; (2) payment of approximately 21 million yen in unpaid compensation from May 23 to the filing of the suit; (3) compensation to be paid from October to December 2022; and (4) compensation in the amount of 11 million yen. The amount claimed totaled 97 million yen. Shuichi Okubo, an attorney at Shunpo Law Office who represented Mr. Kiyota at the time, gave this account of the circumstances leading up to the lawsuit to this publication.

Even before his indefinite suspension in January, Mr. Kiyota had been in discussions with the baseball team through the players’ association. However, the team did not respond to the collective bargaining in good faith, suspended him indefinitely, and then unilaterally terminated his contract in May. We believe this is unfair labor and legally unacceptable.

As Mr. Kiyota’s personal representative, we, too, sent a content-certified letter to the baseball team in June and have held discussions with them, but the team has unilaterally suspended negotiations on this matter as well. Since it was difficult to resolve the issue through discussion, we concluded that we had no choice but to file a lawsuit.

On December 13 of that year, the second oral argument was held. In response to Mr. Kiyota’s claim that his dismissal was invalid, the baseball team argued that there was a clear reason for his dismissal and that he had not signed a long-term contract. Mr. Kiyota, who hopes to return to active baseball, told this magazine in a telephone interview

I don’t know yet (whether I will continue to look for a way to play baseball). Nothing has really been decided. I haven’t been able to train as much as before. I am thinking about various problems. I can’t talk about my feelings in detail right now, but I’ll talk about them when the time comes. ……” (December 31, 2021)

He revealed his painful feelings.

On Instagram, where he reported the settlement, Mr. Kiyota said.

I will look at myself once again and do various things to repay those who have helped me and to be of help to many others. I will devote myself even more to this endeavor.”

Mr. Kiyota is currently an official commentator for the Saitama Musashi Heat Bears of the Baseball Challenge League. We will continue to keep an eye on Mr. Kiyota to see how he will be involved in the baseball world.