In spite of his corporate failings, his team’s losing woes over the past six years and being wrapped up in the whole Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon was still somehow able to get put in charge of Major League Baseball’s finance committee. But new MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is defending him.
Since he was somehow smart enough to take his profits out before the Madoff scheme collapsed, many accused the Mets’ owner of having been complicit in the fraud. He was forced by the Federal government to refund millions that he earned from Madoff’s investments and ended up losing a total of $75.6 million.
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Apparently this committee deals specifically with baseball’s budgetary issues and Fred Wilpon is good at making up budgets.
As Manfred told The New York Times, “I understand the whole Madoff thing, but before and since, Fred Wilpon was an extraordinarily successful businessman. The committee — the finance and compensation committee — really deals with two issues, principally: executive compensation, which he’s more than capable of dealing with, and a central office budget. Obviously, to be a successful businessman, you have to know how to budget.”
“If you really understand which committees do what, I don’t see it as an issue, ” Manfred said. “He understands how the budget process in baseball has worked, and he’s more than qualified to fill that role.”
