Juan Núñez is living these hours in Yokohama with mixed feelings. While praying for the bronze medal, he is already worried about when he arrives on the island.
“Certainly the Dominican Republic has qualified for two world tournaments this year in the U-13 and U-23 categories, and we are also preparing to participate in the U-12 pre-World Championship. We have requested the tickets from the Ministry of Sports and so far we have not had a positive response regarding the totality of the tickets we need,” said Nunez via text message to DL from Japan.
The first commitment is as close as August 27 to September 7 in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the U-12. The other events are between September and October in Tijuana.
The current Minister of Sports, Francisco Camacho, resumed the model of monthly allocations to federations (modified by Danilo Diaz, 2016-2020).
Fedobe had a monthly deposit of RD$934,000, its main source to finance its activities, a sum insufficient to afford just one of the three trips for a delegation of at least 20 people.
“Participating in these World Cup events is what gives the country the opportunity to be in the best positions in the world ranking, which we have been achieving since 2017,” insists Núñez, who assumed the presidency in 2019 after the death of Héctor “Tito” Pereyra.
The U-23 World Cup awards from 60 points for participating to 600 to the champion in the International Baseball and Softball Federation ranking. The continental U-13 offers between 30 and 300. The continental U-12 goes from six to 60. Last June, the Pan American Baseball Confederation left out the Dominican Republic from the continental U-18, when the pandemic forced the suspension of the qualifiers and appealed to the ranking and previous participations. In that case, the Dominicans did not attend two of the last three games.
